Three Important Reasons Why You Need to Fact Check Your Content
First, perhaps, we should answer exactly who needs to fact check. I will tell you who.
You.
Yes you. Your response to this might fall into one of the following four categories:
a) Me? I’m not a journalist, I write press releases/blog posts/tweets for a living.
b) Meh, I am a scientist/engineer/accountant/development professional/nerd, I already know my facts are right.
c) I just clicked on this because I thought the Hemingway quote was cool. (You can read the 1958 Paris Review interview that the quote comes from in full here.)
d) Yes, I totally agree. However, who has the time for that anymore?
To all of you, (except “c” who I suppose is long gone by now), I say “not so fast!” Let me give you a few good reasons why. Then, in my next post on this topic, I will show you how, in as little time as possible, you can bring an added layer of accuracy to whatever form of content you have been tasked with writing, producing, or editing.
Reason #1
This one is pretty obvious but begs repeating: You and/or your organization’s reputation is on the line. All it takes is one vaguely curious journalist or irritated online critic to do a few quick google searches on your work and bam. A great cause, message, or sales pitch is overshadowed by an error, whether big or small in nature.
And despite the widespread shedding of fact checking jobs in media outlets in recent years, there is a thriving, usually nonprofit online industry dedicated to tracking and checking the every word and statistic quoted by politicians, the media, and governments (including the European Commission).
Reason #2
Once published, errors take on a life of their own. Take a look at the graph below comparing the life of an incorrect tweet versus the subsequently corrected one. (Read the full critique it comes from here.)
And how many of us actively seek out the “Corrections” section of our favorite media outlets to keep track of yesterday’s mistakes? (No, The Onion’s epically awesome corrections don’t count.)
Even worse, it isn’t just readers who wander off with that incorrect statistic or statement stuck forever in their little reading/viewing heads (“Huh, who knew Afghanistan bordered the Mediterranean Sea?”) but also your coworkers, your colleagues at other companies or organizations and, of course, frantic deadline journalists who are notorious for appropriating and repeating ad infinitum handy nuggets of info from each other’s work (and yours) when under the gun. (Fact check: I have worked in the past as both a frantic deadline journalist AND as a fact checker. It happens, it just does.)
Reason #3
Your cause or brand deserves better. And, as I mentioned earlier, your message can easily be overshadowed by errors. Let’s skip straight to climate change, an extreme example of what I am talking about. Climate change is a problem that threatens to derail hard-won development achievements the world over; as a result, it is an issue that many of us are passionate about, whether we are working to slow it down or we are helping people and governments to adapt to its ongoing and future effects.
At the same time, there is a pretty strong and virulent online community dedicated to debunking every piece of climate change news it doesn’t agree with. With the bulk of that negative attention coming from within the borders of the country that is both the world’s second biggest emitter of greenhouse gasses as well as one of the largest sources of actual and potential donations to development and aid organizations, it behooves all of us to triple check anything we write about climate change.
Not to make you feel any pressure or anything.
(Also, I thought the U.S. was the largest emitter but luckily I fact checked myself at the last moment. We still are per capita though, whew.)
Anyway, now that you are thinking “My God, this is the most convincing/only argument for fact checking I have ever read” and wondering what to do next, never fear, for my next piece will include a “Very Thorough But Thankfully Short List of Fact Checking Hows.” Stay tuned!
Learn more about my work at www.goodstoryeditorial.com or contact me at megan.cossey@gmail.com
Originally published at www.linkedin.com.
