TheSkiffView
TRUTH
Accuracy is journalists’ highest priority

The reality of the news business is that there are no excuses when it comes to credibility. Your work either can or cannot be trusted. There is no high, dry or safe ground when it comes to the truth. It must be established.

Monday evening Chris Newton, a 1996 graduate and a former Skiff editor, was fired from the Associated Press after the organization said it was unable to verify some 15 quotations he wrote while working for the bureau. Investigations are ongoing and the Skiff does not hold a position on the incident.
But we do have one on accuracy.

Factual errors sometimes happen, and for that reason we do not hesitate to run a correction. Fabrication is not an issue we tolerate.

At times it seems unfair that journalists are to be the “watchdogs” of the world when everyone else is off duty, or that everything we produce is to be objective while teachers, preachers and politicians hurl their opinions at us.

But at the end of a news day, we either covered a story or we didn’t. We either found the facts or we couldn’t. And there is no fiction-writing in a true newsroom.

Until the next morning an unexplainable accountability and fear rests with us until we see our work on fresh print.

And that moment is when a reporter’s guilt or pride peaks and you can see whether or not they, themselves, are credible.

That is the truth; let it be established.