Why do journalists prewrite stories?
On Tuesday, NPR’s Nina Totenberg made news after erroneously publishing a story about the retirement of Supreme Court Justice Samuel Alito, who is not, in fact, retiring just yet.
“When people saw what happened yesterday with NPR, there were a lot of nods and ‘there but for the grace of God go I’ comments,” said Jennifer Orsi, Poynter’s vice president for publishing and local news initiatives. Orsi has held several senior and executive-level editor positions during her 30-year career.
Related Knowledge Center: Inside the newsroom
As newsrooms struggle with rickety business models and precarious finances — as well as new technologies — they are deploying an array of editorial responses.
The Times and its critics | Washington Post mortem
Related Knowledge Center: Fact-checking and its detractors
Fact-checking has become a familiar tool for political reporters to hold office-holders and candidates accountable. But critics ask if fact-checkers sometimes miss the forest for the trees, and if the practice often struggles with false equivalency the way conventional political coverage does.