Get the story right, don't worry about being first

Michael Gartenberg | July 10, 2005, 02:29 PM

Geez Robert, How do you defend this? You'd rather be first than get it right? Are you kidding me? There is no getting it first and being wrong. Why bother with accuracy at all, just write the story you want and don't bother to let the facts get in the way :) Correcting the post doesn't help in the end. The original as of today (which I won't link to) is still out there and being circulated and there' no way you can take back words once they are out there. Ed's totally correct here and it's stuff like this that gives blogging a bad name.

There's a famous story based on a midrash (D’varim Rabbah 6:14) about a man who gossiped. "The people in the town were upset with him because of the things he said. The gossiping man was sorry and went to the rabbi to ask him how to repair the damage he had done. The rabbi asked him, 'Do you have a pillow at home? One stuffed with feathers?' The man nodded. 'Then I think I can help you,' the rabbi said. 'Come back tomorrow and bring that pillow with you.' The man did not understand, but he did what the rabbi told him to do and returned to the rabbi’s house the next morning with the feather pillow. The rabbi stood on the porch and took out a large knife. He cut the pillow open, and feathers flew everywhere, carried away by the wind in all directions. The rabbi told the man, “Now go collect all of the feathers and fix the pillow.'
“But I can’t!” the man said. “There are so many feathers and they have flown so far away! I will never find all of them.” 'That is the point,' said the rabbi. 'Just like the feathers cannot be gathered from the wind, so, the unkind words you said have now been spread throughout the village. You can not truly take back your words once someone has heard them.”

Once you hit post, the story is out there, it circulates and gets reported as fact. Having worked for companies on the receiving end of stories posted as fact that should have been labeled rumor, I can tell you there's real damage done. Take the time and get it right, don't worry about being first, otherwise, it might be a great landing but at the wrong airport.

Ed Bott: Boing Boing gets a big shovel, spreads BS... But, I can't pile on. I bias toward getting the story first rather than getting it right, too. But, when I make a mistake (and I make many) I try to correct it and say I'm sorry. Boing Boing did correct the post, but only after the damage had been done.

[Scobleizer: Microsoft Geek Blogger]