Mathew's comments - Latest Comments in Of blogs, accuracy and editors

Re: Of blogs, accuracy and editors

Mathew — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 23:02:13 -0000

@Matt: well, obviously he needs to sleep -- but he's not the only one who works at TechCrunch, is he? And the post still hasn't been updated. I assume he's woken up by now.

@knackered: I'm not suggesting that wire services shoot first and ask questions later. I'm just saying that getting things onto the wire first is more important than just about anything, and if you have worked at a wire service or know someone who has, you know what I'm talking about.

The fact is that mistakes happen all the time -- not the "I made up a story" kind of mistakes, but spelling errors, mis-attributions, etc., and in some cases misunderstandings. It's a factor of trying to be first. I'm not saying blogs and wire services are identical, I'm just saying there are similarities.

Re: Of blogs, accuracy and editors

knackeredhack — Wed, 16 Apr 2008 20:12:30 -0000

Mathew, I beg to differ with you about wire services. Although standards of accuracy and transparency may vary from wire service to wire service at the margin, I think it is not fair to say that they shoot first and ask questions later. At the core of the Reuters business, for example, are financial market readers where the difference between being right and wrong can cost millions in a nano-second.

While news editors at other media outlets surely need to be alerted to wire service mistakes as quickly as possible, I think you would find that an angry call from a major investment bank that has lost money as a result of a reporting inaccuracy will focus the mind a lot more quickly than one from another journalist because the mistake is generally more easily reversible for the latter. So there is a premium on accuracy, despite the intense competitive pressure to be first.

There are other arguments to be had about wire services and the way their services are produced and consumed in the markets, but in my experience they are not careless in the quest for speed.

Tim

Re: Of blogs, accuracy and editors

Matt Craven — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 22:45:36 -0000

So was Duncan to wake up at 3am and make an update to his TC post - since he's in Australia and all?

Matt

Re: Of blogs, accuracy and editors

Mathew — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 19:16:52 -0000

I'm not sure it's true to say that right and wrong don't matter, Allen -- even for Duncan :-) I think it's probably fair to say that being right is only *one* of the things that matter. And frankly, when it comes right down to it, it's only part of the equation with traditional media as well.

Re: Of blogs, accuracy and editors

allen — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 18:51:10 -0000

Mathew - what you miss in your post is that frankly right or wrong doesn't matter - inbounds do to a variety of blogs. If you look at duncan's post (and im not suggesting whether he should or shoul dnot have posted by any means) - he has driven a large number of new fresh inbounds.

if we looked at say the top 20,000 tech blog posts of all time in terms of inbounds, i wonder how many weren't true :)

Re: Of blogs, accuracy and editors

Mathew — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:49:44 -0000

Was it a news story, Nate -- or was it a just blog post? What's the difference? Your blog post about it didn't require fact-checking or spellchecking. Why did Duncan's? I'm not yanking your chain -- I'm interested in how we define the differences.

Re: Of blogs, accuracy and editors

Nate Westheimer — Tue, 15 Apr 2008 16:20:37 -0000

Thanks for catching the name spelling mistake. It's corrected. And as for my spelling and grammar -- I'd love to be a full-time writer and have the time to proof-read things :-) still, as amateur as I am, I'm not going to invent news stories because one incompetent computer user things she sees ads. If that was the case, I'd use my grandma as a source for this story: "Computer Takes on Personality of its Own, Hates Grandmother"
:-)