5 ms·
>Don't they do peer reviews before publishing articles to the eyes of millions ? No. The closest journalism gets to peer review is fact-checking. I know of no
by declan 12y ago
>Don't they do peer reviews before publishing articles to the eyes of millions ?
No.
The closest journalism gets to peer review is fact-checking. I know of no newspaper or website that does formal fact-checking; the only times I recall being formally factchecked were when I've written for monthlies like Playboy, Wired magazine, etc. Here's a famous example of where fact-checking would have been useful: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Glass#The_New_Republic_affair http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Glass#The_New_Republic_...
At other news organizations there is, in theory, informal fact-checking. I've done that as an editor and reporter, and I've had that done to me by my editors and, more frequently, by the good folks working on copy desks. This is not necessarily a rigorous process, but it can flag more obvious problems, hyperlinks to the wrong web pages, information stated as fact that is no longer accurate, etc.
As <jonnathanson> points out nearby, some of these built-in safeguards have been eroded by the journalism crunch. Others have been removed by the perceived need to increase publishing speed. I know of one news organization that had 3-4 humans involved in reviewing a story circa 2002 before it could be published on the web. By 2010-2012, however, reporters were clicking the "publish" button in the CMS themselves for almost all stories -- and then sending a request to the copy desk for an edit after the story was live.
[Disclosure: I worked as a technology journalist, albeit one with a technical background, before leaving CNET/CBS last year to found http://recent.io/ http://recent.io/]