Get it right or pay the price

One thing that the online world had done to journalism is make it much easier to share our mistakes with the globe. Previously if a paper made a mistake in a print story and was found out, a correction was printed the following day and that was often the end of it.

No longer do we enjoy such anonymity.

Case in Point: The Tale of 30,000 pigs.

Early this the The Bulletin in Rockhampton ran this story both in print and online

The story focused on a comment from a farmer to a journalist that he had lost 30,000 pigs into the Dawson River during January's floods. Unfortunately the journalist failed to probe the incident more thoroughly and later found out the farmer had actually lost "30 sows and pigs" down the river rather than 30,000. It seems neither sub-editors or chief editors felt the detail needed to be checked either leading to the embarrassing faux-paux.

Needless to say the paper printed a correction the next day but has been the butt of many jokes online thanks to the power of online communication.

Media Watch enjoyed the mistake.

But they were not alone, Huffington Post  had a laugh at the Bully's expense as did a multitude of bloggers across the globe.

The correction even got a mention in  media release from the Queensland Premier Anna Bligh.

The moral of the story, and I'll quote Johnathan Holmes of Media Watch, "If a number seems really and truly amazing that's probably because it's wrong".

Part two of the moral, in my own words, "there is nowhere to hide from your mistakes in an online world."