The online journalism challenge: speed vs. accuracy vs. both
The joys of live television! This week, the BBC and CNN aired two tremendous gaffes. The Beeb interviewed the wrong man, about a lawsuit against Apple Computer while CNN panned to President Bush too early while he was rehearsing the speech he was about to give live (both videos on start-up citizen video site YouTube which is quickly blowing the competition away). Although it was live TV, this could be a warning to newspaper journalists and editors who are increasingly pressured to put information online as soon as it breaks.
If it's so easy to get things wrong when they're done quickly, is it worth risking posting information before it is confirmed? There is the argument that readers will correct you. But what if one reader scans the false information, doesn't check up on the aftermath, and posts the rehashed false info on his blog for all to read? Those who read it will thus be misinformed.

If their journalists increasingly function in this way without the proper factchecking and editing, won't newspapers lose readers? They understand that everyone makes mistakes. But isn't it important to get the facts straight for the audience. Isn't that the job of a newspaper?

Just take the BBC's screw up. On Saturday May 13, The Guardian, as well as several other publications posted on their websites that the man who had been mistakenly interviewed, Guy Goma, was a cab driver. On May 15, Reuters posted the same story on its website.

But the following day, Reuters came out with the real story. Goma is a data cleansing expert and was at the BBC for a job interview. "The mixup is being blamed on a young, inexperienced producer," said the Reuters video next to which was no correction on the previous day's story. The Guardian's article also does not have a correction.

Now look back to the original version of this article. It was entitled, "A little humor: television bloopers" and was supposed to just add a little levity to our day and question the speed with which people post on the Internet. Apart from a small modification in the introductory paragraph, the first three paragraphs that you just read were in the first version I posted.

But then I remembered when I had first read the article, I had read Goma was an IT man (I obviously found the story late). When I went back to find the story, I only read that he was a taxi driver. Confused, but confident Goma was a cabbie because I had read it on a few sources, I posted. Then, after 5 more minutes of research, I found the Reuters article I had originally read telling Goma's real specialties and immediately rewrote this posting.

So once again, is it more important to post and correct yourself after, or get it right the first time? Can speed and accuracy be combined on the Internet or are we on the brink of a new "journalism" sprinkled with asterisked corrections?