In last week’s lecture, Elaine Ford said the basics of
journalism still applied to online journalists. Names and fact checking remain
as important as ever. If only our colleagues at Fairfax had been in the
lecture.
On Monday, the Brisbane Times, Sydney Morning Herald and other Fairfax news websites
broke the story about a series of controversial text messages between (former)
Federal Speaker Peter Slipper and his former staffer James Ashby.
The story also revealed the identity of the person who
introduced Slipper to Ashby as Ryan Reynolds and alleged he was Ashby’s ‘lover’.
Well, not quite. While the Fairfax sites called the middle-man Ryan Reynolds,
his correct name is actually Rhys Reynolds.
Ryan Reynolds is a Hollywood actor and heart-throb
among the ladies. Rhys Reynolds is a former Sunshine Coast Council candidate
and university student. There’s just a small difference.
But if that wasn’t embarrassing enough for Fairfax, the real Reynolds
took to facebook to publicize the gaff and say he’d never been in a
relationship with Ashby.
The
reporter who broke the story, Jessica Wright, later tweeted the real Reynolds
and apologised for the errors.
Perhaps
this embarrassing scenario will be the catalyst for our Online Journalism staff
to change the subject’s first assessment on speed vs accuracy and give more
weighting to accuracy?
After
all, what’s more important, getting the news first or getting the news right?
We’ll leave Fairfax to answer that question.
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