Source A: Gets info Tells Journo
Journo: writes piece and publishes ir
Source A: in the meantime between the journo publishing it got info that contradicts their original piece of info
Journo now looks stupid.
Not buying this. It’s not like they have to wait to go to print the next morning any more. One click and it’s published online immediately. They then tweet about it to drive traffic to the website.
What it comes down to for me is there is such a clamour and pressure to be first to break new information and claim the story that false information is being passed around and the necessary checks of truth and accuracy aren’t thorough enough.
You can almost see the speed at which this information was pushed out by all the spelling and grammatical errors. There is no proof reading anymore, just hit send and get it online.
In this specific case it’s a business story being covered by sports journalists, so their contacts probably know nothing/very little and they are piecing stuff together as best they can.
Again, Whitwell was at pains to point out this story is outside of his comfort zone, and is a learning curve for him too. This probably goes for all the sports correspondents.