►The internet age brings audiences’ expectation of fast-delivered information, but this is nothing new: News services and broadcast journalism are in their second century of balancing accuracy against speed. This section of the SPJ Code argues that journalism’s core tenet is accuracy – regardless of the medium used to deliver news, or of time pressures created by competition or other concerns.
The United Press International’s decades-old motto, “get it first, but first get it right,” remains as important as ever in the internet age, as research shows that false news spreads faster than accurate information online.
The SPJ Ethics Committee recommends that journalists use an accuracy checklist, such as one developed by the late Steve Buttry. Among the recommended tips is to ask sources: “How do you know that?”
Sources:
- https://www.science.org/doi/full/10.1126/science.aap9559
- https://stevebuttry.wordpress.com/2011/01/04/my-version-of-craig-silvermans-accuracy-checklist/
►Reuters Institute fellow Reiko Saisho of Japan’s NHK news argues that, in times of a fast-moving national crisis when user-generated information is online long before governments provide official information, audience members should expect that reporting errors will occur.
In her narrowly tailored paper, “Speed vs. Accuracy in Times of Crisis,” Saisho argues that journalists must remain relevant in order to serve the public, and that sometimes means publishing more quickly than they would want. Ethical journalists will work to verify and triangulate information, consider carefully when to hold back information and be sure audiences know what it verified and what is not, use their long-established identity to be trusted, be transparent, and update mistakes.
Source: https://reutersinstitute.politics.ox.ac.uk/our-research/speed-vs-accuracy-time-crisis