Journalists not Checking Facts

College student Shane Fitzgerald used the popular online encyclopedia Wikipedia in an experiment to show just how dependent journalists are on the internet as their source. Fitzgerald posted a fake quote on Wikipedia supposedly said by Maurice Jarre, a French composer who had recently passed away. After posting the quote, Fitzgerald was surprised to find that not only had various blogs and websites used the quote, but mainstream high- end newspapers as well included it in their versions of the composer’s obituary.
It surprised me that so much of the media depended on such an unreliable source. While I understood how low key bloggers could made the mistake, I would have thought the more upscale and bigger newspapers would not be able to afford making the same one. These papers affect many more people and it should be important for them to get their readers accurate and dependable news. Situations like this may cause them to lose readers and promote the image of their newspaper as being unreliable. While, like in this case, the mistake may not have been very important to many people, I believe a newspapers' reputation is still hurt because in the end it shows their carelessness and laziness when it comes to checking the facts. I think this experiment is a good wake up call to journalists out there in regard to checking facts. It also raises public awareness on being able to identify which source "got it right."

Photo Credit: Britannica via Creative Commons