Fact checking at warp speed: how online news production is affecting adherence to accuracy in journalism

This thesis examines how news organizations that were formerly print-only have learned to navigate threats to accuracy brought about by the production of breaking online news. Among the primary challenges are competition-induced speed and the collapse of the traditional editing hierarchy. Using a mixed-methods approach of participant observation, interviews, and a survey, this research examines these threats in terms of two dominant philosophies of the news media, individualistic and communitarian, and reveals how certain characteristics of breaking online news production threaten journalists' social responsibility and autonomy. However, this thesis also identifies ways in which journalists are learning to cope with threats to accuracy-among them using the fluid, easily updatable nature of the Web as well as audience feedback to help identify and eliminate errors. It concludes that there is reason to hope that accuracy will remain an important journalistic norm in the online era.