mct16:
it is important for journalists like Dominic to get it right first time.
Of course, and I am sure he would not wish it otherwise.
However, journalists are only human, and mistakes do happen - it's why pepers have columns dedicated to offering corrections to their stories.
Were journalists to be infallible, they presumably wouldn't
be journalists - they'd have used their psychic powers to predicted the lottery and retire, and newspapers wouldn't have columns dedicated to corrections and clarifications.
mct16:
What would happen if the BBC wrongly reported that Gordon Brown had suddenly died?
Nothing, really.
Just look at the world-wide reporting of the "death" of Jeff Goldblum recently.
That just shows that even with modern communications (or perhaps even
because of them), errors will happen. People would look foolish, but at the end of the day - so what? Everything that is reported in the media is only ever a polemic, somebody's take on things.
In any case, there are far more avenues by which the working journalist can check on the veracity of a story like the death of the Prime Minister: Parliament would issue a statement, his constituency office would also do so, as well as his party. A death certificate would be provided by the doctor attending, and that would be a matter of public record, should further corroboration be required.
This is a truly trivial task, compared to finding out about an otherwise obscure person, about whom facts were scarce, and indeed who may have colluded in covering the traces of his life.
When it comes to the Jeff Goldblum story, that he'd fallen to his death on a film-set in New Zealand, which was carried by major news sites and papers, they didn't even seem to notice that the
exact same story (word for word) had circulated for both Tom Hanks (2006) and Tom Cruise (2008), so I'm afraid that your zealous pursuit of journalistic perfection really doesn't reflect what goes on.
The Goldblum, Hanks and Cruise story all had been generated using an on-line "joke" website, which allowed visitors to enter a name into a template, producing bogus reports, that then could (and did) circulate as "viral" news stories.
The other thing to remember is that journalists have to make deadlines, and on budget.
Information is only ever as accurate as the money and time allowed. If you have unlimited time and budget, you hop on a 'plane, go to the source(s), and research the subject from end-to-end.
If you have five pounds and five days, you ring up what looks like a reputable expert at the Hergé Museum, say, and you ask them.