Speed vs Accuracy: The Importance of Getting It Right

According to the Reuters Handbook of Journalism; “Accuracy is at the heart of what we do. It is our job to get it first but it is above all our job to get it right. Accuracy, as well as balance, always takes precedence over speed.”

Unfortunately in the case of author and journalist David Monagan this could not be further from the truth. In one of his regular blog posts for world-renowned media conglomerate Forbes, Monagan made a crucial error that ultimately led to his resignation.

Mistakenly referring to President of Ireland Michael D Higgins as an “acknowledged homosexual” instead of his electoral rival for the position two years prior, David Norris, is an unacceptable inaccuracy and an error which led to, what he described as, a “journalist’s worst nightmare”.

In an age where print media is fast declining and digital and social media platforms are where we now look, it is easy to see how such a blunder could occur by a journalist. However, how such a noticeable and clearly defamatory mistake could be approved for an online platform without so much as a second glance from a second pair of eyes is not so easy to fathom.

Although his mistake was genuine, and taken down from the internet within minutes, it still went viral and the damage was done. How can such a wrong be righted? How can something so defamatory be corrected? It is obvious through Monagan’s very article, published on Independent.ie, that he is truly sorry for allowing such a mistake to occur. The article itself is almost an apology to Michael D Higgins for ever allowing such a fault to appear in his article. His resignation from Forbes is another acknowledgement that he refuses to work within an organisation that doesn’t double-check copy and allows room for such errors to occur. These actions alone show how Monagan has attempted to vindicate himself and his actions.

As regrettable as this incident is, Monagan highlights for us, as aspiring journalists, how imperative it is to double and triple check your work. If he had not been under pressure and in a rush maybe he would have given his work one last crucial glance. However, there is a lot to be learned from Monagan’s experience and the moral of the story is simple; don’t submit your work online, in a newspaper or on radio without making sure everything is in order and your facts are correct.

When social media becomes antisocial...

It’s the first thing I do in the morning and it’s the last thing I do at night. Most of the time I don’t want to do it but I fall victim to the temptation. I’m an addict.

It’s like every drug; there are highs and there are lows. Sometimes I feel good after doing it and sometimes, more often than not, I’m left with a dull, empty feeling, and I wish I never bothered with it.

But there’s no escaping it, and that makes it hard to quit. The whole world is consumed with it. Social media is my drug and I am an addict.

Yet I’m not alone; far from it in fact. The latest social media statistics show more and more people are signing up and getting involved in the cyber world. What started out as a low key college project for one American college student is now the biggest social media platform with 1.28 billion monthly active users on Facebook. Twitter has also seen a boost in popularity in the last few years as more and more journalists see it as a strong platform for breaking news stories. The site now has 255 million active viewers and an average of 500 million tweets are sent everyday. 78% of Twitter’s active users are on mobile and almost half of these users tweet at least once a day.

Snapchat is the latest phenomenon to grab the attention of social media users. The photo messaging application, initially released in 2011, now has 30 million monthly active users, with an average of 400 million snapchats being sent every day. Similarly Instagram, another online mobile photo-sharing app, has also gained popularity in the past year. To date, over 20 billion photos have been shared on the site and 23% of teenagers consider it their favourite social network.

So how do we pull ourselves away from our phones and laptops? For many people it’s not as easy as just logging out. Most college students have a class Facebook page where they get information on whether a class is on or not or what topics people are studying for a certain exams. By not having a Facebook page you miss out on some important information. Likewise, your actual social life could also be missing out if you deactivate your Facebook page. Gone are the days of sending out handwritten invitations. Today people are invited through the events calendar on Facebook. So, if you don’t have a page you might not get the memo! 

For journalists it’s even harder. In an age where print media is declining, digital and social media is where we now look to. So how do we limit the amount of time we spend online when that’s where we now have to look to for breaking news, current affairs and all the latest happenings from around the world? As a journalist I find it difficult to distance myself from social media when it’s one of our main sources of information. But at the same time I have to wonder at what cost are we simplifying our lives by communicating through such sites?

And that’s maybe where the addiction starts. You say you’re just going to log on for a minute and check if there’s anything important you need to know and suddenly, you’ve wasted two hours scrolling through your news feed. It’s so easy to get addicted to looking at other people’s lives, both celebrities and people you actually know. They look like they’re living the dream and having a great time with all their statuses, photos and snapchats…but are they really? The problem with social media sites is that people only show the good side of everything they’re doing. So, the next time you get jealous while creeping on someone else’s Facebook, Instagram or whatever it may be, just remember; they may not be having as good a time as you think.

 

But most of us can’t resist and we all crave attention in some way, shape or form. By posting on

social media networks we satisfy that craving when we get a ‘like’ on our new profile picture, a retweet on Twitter, or a match on Tinder. We are a world that has become dependent on social media in order to feel good about ourselves and that’s not healthy.

Pubs and nightclubs, once full of people actually talking to each other, are now full of people glancing at their phones every two minutes, taking pictures on snapchat or creeping on Facebook. I have decided to make a conscious effort to distance myself from social media when I am on a night out or in the company of others. It’s just not necessary most of the time. I’m gonna try that old fashioned thing called talking. It can’t be that hard…can it?