Clark Hoyt, public editor of The New York Times, took on the issue of 24-7 news online and via Twitter and other social media outlets with a weekend piece that noted the dangers of such quick Web access.
“Editors say Times standards are Times standards, regardless of the medium,” Hoyt writes. “But the Web is vastly different from a printed paper, and the truth is that its standards are different to some degree. The language is sometimes looser, early editing is sometimes haphazard, readers can talk back - and not always civilly.”
He has a point. But, sadly, as faster, faster and faster becomes the order at all newspapers, slowing down for editing, fact-checking and accuracy seems to be less and less and less.