News Immediacy: Helping or Hurting

By: Christina Woldt

This Sunday evening, I finally had a moment to sit down and watch some educational television. I turned to MTV to watch the Video Music Awards (VMA’s.) The pre-show of the VMA’s promptly started at 7:00 p.m. central time. I watched all of the celebrities and musicians walk down the red carpet in their flashy suits and dresses. After about 30 minutes of the program I proceeded to check my e-mail and log on-to MSN to check up on the latest news. On the front page contained the headline,"Looks from the Red Carpet." I was literally watching these stars come down the red carpet at the VMA’S as I was browsing through pictures of them on the red carpet” at the VMA’s at the same time! Now that’s what I call IMMEDIATE! Now, of course these are just uploaded photos and bylines, it’s not necessarily a lengthy researched article that makes the New York Times front-page news. But, the saying “News travels fast” could never be more true in today’s journalism. I understand how photos and bylines are easy to post on the web in seconds but, what about when it is news that really effects us, like the number of death’s a tornado caused or facts of a local school shooting. These stories need to be accurate as well as immediate. The problem with this is that journalists are so focused on getting their story out that they neglect to check the facts in their story. I’d rather wait another hour for important news that is accurate than get my news right away that may have false information. I understand some journalists make mistakes in their articles but I also strongly feel that it should be more important to write accurate articles than to turn in an article before all the other journalists that may contain the wrong information.