Media Ethics: Truth and accuracy · Verification and Corrections
How journalists confirm what they report, where accuracy fails even with true facts, and how errors should be corrected.
Try 3 questions
1. In The Elements of Journalism, Kovach and Rosenstiel say the essence of journalism is a discipline of what?
- Neutrality
- Verification
- Objectivity
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Answer: Verification
They argue verification is what separates journalism from entertainment, propaganda and fiction; it is a method for getting facts right.
2. In Kovach and Rosenstiel's account, what was journalistic "objectivity" originally meant to describe?
- Giving every side exactly equal space
- A consistent method for testing information
- A reporter free of any personal opinion
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Answer: A consistent method for testing information
No reporter is free of bias, so the idea was that the method, not the person, should be objective and repeatable.
3. A reporter hears the same claim from three people. What matters most before treating it as confirmed?
- Whether they repeat it word for word
- Whether all three are well-known figures
- Whether each one knows it independently
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Answer: Whether each one knows it independently
Three people repeating one original source are still a single source; corroboration needs independent knowledge of the fact.
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