Author: Editor

Let’s all repeat the first rule of journalism: Get it right.

Rule number two may state that you also want to get it first, but getting it right is so much more important. And that fact seems to be disappearing in this age of skip the copy editor and get the story online immediately.

It’s all a rush to get it first. A few months ago, Joe Paterno was reported dead a day before he died. A reporter lost his job for that. He got it first but he got it wrong.

Things like that kill credibility.

The Illinois Times, a weekly and online newspaper based in Springfield (Ill.) does a good job of reporting on local media in the central Illinois region.

Recently, the Illinois Times wrote an in depth piece about Illinois Statehouse News, an online newspaper that started in 2009 and has broke a number of stories about Illinois state politics. The May 10 piece about Illinois Statehouse News questioned its conservative ownership but also reported that its coverage to this point seems fair.

There’s an interesting story coming out of the Wisconsin recall election. The latest polls show Wisconsin governor, Scott Walker, in a virtual dead heat with Tom Barrett, his most likely opponent. This comes despite a huge advantage in advertising spending by Walker.

Should a student newspaper run the name of a female rape victim if she spoke in a public forum on the topic and gave those at the forum her name?

This is an appropriate question to ask in a journalism ethics class when discussing what should and should not be covered and how to go about covering it. But the question becomes more intriguing when following the reaction to the story that was run in a college newspaper.