Lets face facts, I FACT'd Up

The Dream Act, The Start Treaty, Don't Ask Don't Tell, and WikiLeaks are just a few issues circumventing the media today. To the average person watching the media (as I normally would be) it's just a jumble of facts and bad news anchoring. When I was doing journalism in high school I was taught to do face to face interviews and report the facts. At first I didn't take it seriously, but after our school had a few interesting events take place, school board members began to rely on our paper. I will admit, I felt important.

Fast forward to 2010 and now we have a dozen media outlets ranging from televised news to internet news to Twitter and of course, blogs. The idea of journalism has jumped from the gray and black to the high resolution pixelated. We can report smarter, faster, and with more flexibility. Basically anyone can be a journalist in this day and age. However, how many people out there are reporters? Writing is only a fraction of what the job entails, a good journalist must gather the FACTS and report the findings. And even the facts can sometimes be skewed so  readers must also do some research. 

If you turn on the TV and believe everything you hear regardless of personal research, then you might be limiting your pool of knowledge. When I find a pressing issue on the news my first instinct is to find an article online and then research some of the facts. Yes, not all of us have the time to do this and some of us quite frankly don't care. However, sometimes if you want to get to the bottom of things you got to dig way deeper. Newscasting, and written news only informs on what is important but if you want the full detail then you should take the extra time to do research. 

The past few days I have been on what some would call a "crusade" doing research on some of Congress' legislations and proposal. In the midst of my multiple browser tabs and searching through reliable online sources I found out some very interesting things. I got a micro education about Supply-side Economics, I learned that some "non-partisan" research groups are heavily supported by ONE party, false reporting and most importantly I learned that sometimes people report on outdated information. 

I want to point out that outdated information, even if it's an hour late, is detrimental to an article. This is usually due to either poor research on the journalist's part or someone else found something more profound and beat you to the punch. However, if it is the the fault of the journalist because he or she did not take the time to actually pick up a phone and call someone or shoot a question to a real living person (and not WikiPedia), then by all means, have your pitch forks ready. Usually a few hours late isn't a big deal, a whole 24 hours and your story is just meaningless.

Of course false reporting is just wrong plain and simple. There are no justifications for this action.

So let it be said if you "FACT'd Up" and aren't that great of a reporter, then definitely recant your statement and make amends. It is never okay to republish things with a correction (editing is essential to any writing, no excuses), but when you're wrong, you are so wrong especially in the public eye. 

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