Accuracy and speed

I don't know if Reuters has quite sacrificed accuracy for speed, but Sean Maguire's blog is unsettling. Methinks he protests too much.

Of course there was no golden age when all copy was accurate and no corners were cut for speed. We all wanted to be first. But it had been drummed into our heads that we had to be right. Editors insisted we had to check and double-check before running with the story, and we had to ensure our words meant what they said. Accuracy was Number One – that's what made Reuters different, better than the rest. That's why broadcasters would run with Reuters alone and would await a second agency for confirmation before going with Brand B.

There was undoubtedly a subtle (or maybe not so subtle) change of emphasis some years back when it was decided we had to carry market-moving news whether we could confirm it or not. Remember the debate about starting a rumour wire? We took a hard-nosed decision that once it was "out there" we too had to be "in there" and as long as we attributed it to someone else we were fine. We could always fix it later. The pick-up rules were loosened.

Sean now says: "To provide a complete service ... our policy is to pick up stories of significance that are being carried by normally reliable (?) media that are in a position to know what they are reporting. We protect our reputation by carefully acknowledging the source of the information and speedily checking its veracity."

So - get it out fast and check later. Does that really "protect our reputation"? First with the second-hand, unverified news?

So dangerous in the Internet age when many readers question the worth of "old-fashioned", slow, fact-checked journalism.

Sean may be absolutely right when he says that amid the Internet babble and argument readers look to Reuters to tell them "what is known and how it is known, with clarity and speed, regardless of whether we originated the story or not."

But amid the racket of rumour and conjecture they surely also look to Reuters for the verified facts. The only thing that will ensure the survival of Reuters news in the Internet age is that it remains the source that is trusted to be right. And trust is an awfully easy thing to lose. ■