Accuracy in online media: Insufficient journalistic routines in fact-checking and corrections

Abstract

Accuracy is at the core of what journalists do and it amounts to journalistic commitment to report without errors. This tenet of journalism is now in danger, because of the influence of digitalization, changes in media landscapes, and the utilization of the assertation model of journalism. In this study, we used a combination of content analysis and visual network analysis to investigate how subjective errors are disseminated through an online environment, how time/speed influences the propagation of errors, and what the error correction procedures/routines are. The results demonstrate that 69% of the analyzed stories contained errors, and the main cause of such errors was the use of secondary sources, instead of primary ones, these errors transcend national borders and, time/speed had only a minor role in the emergence and correction of the errors, etc. Out of the 107 media websites analyzed, only seventeen provide certain modalities of requesting error correction.