Columbia Journalism Review’s Craig Silverman collected “eight simple rules for doing accurate journalism” in a recent column.
Silverman’s first tip plays into an issue that has been debated in the past year: “The initial, mistaken information will be retweeted more than any subsequent correction” or “the Law of Incorrect Tweets.” As iMediaEthics has written, journalists and news organizations have debated how to handle when misinformation like initial (incorrect) reports that U.S. Congresswoman Gabrielle Giffords had died spread on Twitter.
That first rule works well with Silverman’s third tip: “Verification before dissemination.” Many of his tips advocate fact checking, fact checking, fact checking.
Read Silverman’s full column here.