Making Mistakes in Online Journalism Report
Originally published on Mar. 4, 2012
On Saturday, Jan. 8, 2011, NPR News broke the story and reported — on air and online — that U.S. Representative Gabrielle Giffords was killed in an attack at a public event near Tucson, Arizona.[1]
Within a half hour of NPR’s report, three cable news networks – CNN, Fox News and MSNBC – replicated the report. The ABC, NBC and CBS news divisions followed, along with other major news sources across the country, from the L.A. Times and Reuters to Talking Points Memo, many crediting NPR as the source.[2]
The problem: it was false. NPR mistakenly reported Gifford’s death when, in fact, she was alive and still in surgery. (more…)
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