News accuracy of immediate response

I think someone might've also mentioned this in class before. When I found out about yesterday's tragic incident in Virginia Tech, I searched for reports of it online and gathered a number of reports. As I was reading through some of them, the number of people killed were different. One news ogrganization reported 33, another reported 32, another reported 31 and others reported 23. I understand that because this was big news and news organizations relied on timeliness, needing to get the information out to the public, reporters wrote what they probably just heard. But I wonder where exactly do these news organizations (especially those out of the Virginia state/area) get their information from? Moreover, if other news ogranizations get it from the same news wire, how do such numbers get distorted and which report should readers & viewers mostly believe?

When this kind of tragic event happens, I think such accuracy isn't much of a matter on journalism ethics since it is more important to get the word out as quick as you can. Also, when people are just finding out about the news, they are most likely to search online or watch TV to get the details. It is until the next day when the bigger story/report is printed in the newspaper itself, which I think should have a better and more accurate information than what was first displayed online.

I'm just wondering..Is it normally okay to report information that might not be true later? If that is the case and the more formal and bigger reports are printed later with more accurate information, do journalists or the news organization usually make a note of error or something similar to that after they do get all of the details (or most of it) cleared and get the real truth?

This also reminds me of one of the readings we had about lying/speaking the truth. The article by Rickaby (1918) mentions:

"If a person says what is not true, but what he takes to be the truth, he tells indeed a material lie, but at the same time he puts forth no human act of lying. If on the other hand he says what he believes to be false, though it turns out true, he tells a formal lie, though not a material one, and moreover, he does a human act of lying. But human acts are the subject-matter of morality."

I think it's important to determine the definition of a lie so that everyone could follow the same rule/guidelines. Also, is inaccuracy in journalism considered the same as speaking what might not be true? What if someone read something that was inaccurate, believed it, and that piece of information turns out not to be true, would reporters be accounted for producing inaccurate information or information that was false? Is there a difference? What are the ethical guidelines behind that?

I'm not saying that everything that was reported yesterday was not true. The reports of the number of people killed differed and also some reports had more details than others and some had different information about the gunman himself. I don't think that it was the reporters' intention to report any false information. I think they were just doing their job and taking responsibility to get the news out there and I assume they just reported the information that was given to them.. But this kind of stuff makes me wonder where do they get the information from and if all the reporters get it from the same source or news wire, how do the numbers end up differing from each other? And is that okay in situations like these.. and are there any processes they have to go through to clear things up saying "this is what you should read, not this" or something like that?

These were just some of the questions that were running through my mind as I came across the articles online yesterday. What do you guys think?