- Feb 5, 2002
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Once upon a time, it was relatively clear when a news organization did or did not need to publish a correction about an error in one of its reports.
But then the World Wide Web came along and reporters at major organizations began writing what were, in effect, news reports that evolved during or just after an important event — rather like the “write-thru” story updates that wire services had for decades sent to newsrooms.
In the old days, however, there was a definitive moment when ink hit paper and readers and journalists could consider a news report “published.” If there was an error of fact in that published story, then everyone (within reason) knew that there needed to be an ink-on-paper correction.
What is supposed to happen when a news report is merely published online? Is a story in digital bytes as “real” as the old ink-on-paper version? That’s the kind of issue journalists have been debating ever since professionals began “breaking” stories online or producing early versions of news reports that, eventually, merged into final reports that were “published.”
This brings me to an interesting sentence that ran, sort of, in a Washington Post foreign-desk (as opposed to the religion desk) story about the funeral Mass for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Here is that sentence, which has circulated in screen shots taken of the Post website:
Continued below.
www.getreligion.org
But then the World Wide Web came along and reporters at major organizations began writing what were, in effect, news reports that evolved during or just after an important event — rather like the “write-thru” story updates that wire services had for decades sent to newsrooms.
In the old days, however, there was a definitive moment when ink hit paper and readers and journalists could consider a news report “published.” If there was an error of fact in that published story, then everyone (within reason) knew that there needed to be an ink-on-paper correction.
What is supposed to happen when a news report is merely published online? Is a story in digital bytes as “real” as the old ink-on-paper version? That’s the kind of issue journalists have been debating ever since professionals began “breaking” stories online or producing early versions of news reports that, eventually, merged into final reports that were “published.”
This brings me to an interesting sentence that ran, sort of, in a Washington Post foreign-desk (as opposed to the religion desk) story about the funeral Mass for Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI. Here is that sentence, which has circulated in screen shots taken of the Post website:
Continued below.
Correction? Washington Post on the 'religious event' that marked passing of Benedict XVI — GetReligion
Once upon a time, it was relatively clear when a news organization did or did not need to publish a correction about an error in one of its reports. But then the World Wide Web came along and reporters at major organizations began writing what were, in effect, news reports that evolved during or ju
www.getreligion.org
