The Importance of Truth and Accuracy in Journalism

Jacob Motta 

Jakemotta13@gmail.com

Many people would say that the job of a journalist is to spread the truth, and I am one of those people. No matter what you report on, whether it is sports, news, foreign affairs, or anything else, if you do not report the truth then you have no credibility in your work. One of the most important factors in reporting the truth is reporting with accuracy. 

Journalists do not want to write misleading headlines, or "clickbait" viewers into reading an article, or watching a video that they created. All it takes is one time for a viewer to be misled, and they will not want to return to view your content. 

Picture source: Google Images

Daily Mail is known to have misleading headlines which can lead people to question the credibility, and accuracy, of their articles. In this article which was headlined, "Israeli forces shoot dead Palestinian in revenge for killing Rabbi father-of-ten in the West Bank", but then was later changed to read, "Israeli forces shoot dead Palestinian gunman who killed Rabbi father-of-ten in the West Bank". You must read through almost the entire article in order to figure out that the gunman was the instigator in the gunfight with the officers. This article's previous headline is a great example of inaccuracy because it was not a revenge killing for the Israeli forces. The Palestinian man was shot because he instigated a shootout with the Israeli police. The previous headline was published for the purpose of tricking people into clicking on the article, but the headline was simply not true. 

A post published by journalistjan.wordpress.com about the importance of accuracy in journalism really brought to light the importance behind reporting the truth. The article provides a point that needs to be discussed more, "Many people believe that journalism is a very easy job and that anyone can do it, but they don't realize all the work that goes into it." Many people do not realize that journalists have to fact check a publication to make sure that everything they say is correct. If the journalist fails to do this, then someone can have their reputation ruined, the journalist that published the story can lose their job, and the company that the journalist works for can face major backlash depending on the severity of the false statement. 

If journalists do not strive to tell the truth, and be accurate with their work, then the press all together will lose the credibility that it has. It is important to be accurate when reporting the truth or else the American people will lose their voice, and if that point is reached then journalists have failed to meet their common goal in sharing stories, and being a voice for the people.