DISQUS

DISQUS Hello! The Inquisitr is using DISQUS, a powerful comment system, to manage its comments. Learn more.

Community Page

The Inquisitr

Jump to original thread »
Author

“Obama Picks Clinton”: The Danger of Pre-Writing Web Stories

Started by Duncan Riley · 10 months ago

Pre-writing a story is something journalists have done for decades, whether it’s soon-to-occur obits or outcome-unknown elections. In the era of the Internet, though, accidentally publishing those preemptive pieces has become all too easy.
Case in point: The L.A. Times set liv ... Continue reading »

2 comments

  • paisley

    10 months ago

    excellent reporting!
    reply
  • JanDawson

    10 months ago

    This isn't new with internet reporting. I worked in the photography department at the Reuters news agency in London during the early 1990s while I was a student, and they had files ready and waiting to go for the deaths of aging celebrities, mostly notably the Queen Mother. They were desperate to be first with the news, especially since they mostly acted as a resource for the main newspapers and broadcasters and competed with the likes of AP, AFP and others. I wondered whether anything ever accidentally got sent out on these figures ahead of their actual demise, and sure enough a few months later one news source (not Reuters) accidentally sent out their pre-written "The Queen Mother is dead" story rather prematurely. This was in the days well before the true rise of the Internet. The Internet has perhaps accelerated things a little but hasn't changed much at a fundamental level...
    reply

Add New Comment

Returning? Login