Getting the story right

There's little compromise when it comes to accuracy in the newsroom. You take every effort to get the facts straight otherwise you won't last long at your position. You'd hope this same standard would apply to graphics, photographs, and other visual elements, but all too often the standard is lowered in these areas in a rush to provide eye catching content quickly.

An example is the spy satellite story that has been brewing over the last few weeks. Common sense suggests the U.S. military didn't supply images of the satellite to media, and so they took it upon themselves to create graphics for the story.

The result was inaccuracies across the board.

For example, the first image is not the spy satellite. It's a Russian spacecraft docked to the International Space Station. The second image is the Hubble telescope.

In both these situations the graphics could easily have been run by someone familiar with the topic and would most certainly have been caught. It's important for visual content to be just as accurate as stories, helping to prevent embarrassing situations like these.