Reporting of an emotionally charged event is unreliable for roughly two days, because outlets compete on speed while the facts are still moving.
The incentive is structural rather than partisan: being first is rewarded and being wrong early is not punished much, since corrections reach a fraction of the original audience. The result is that the least reliable account of an event is the one with the widest circulation, because it circulated while the event was still the most interesting.
In practice
- A number reported in the first hours is quoted for a week after the official figure has replaced it.
- An internal incident channel produces its worst information in the first hour and its largest audience at the same time.
- Standing
- From Berg's numbered set, first codified on his blog in 2005. Widely observed independently under other names, and consistent with the documented pattern of early errors in breaking coverage. The two-day figure is a rule of thumb rather than a measurement.
- Subject
- Communication & Media
- Essay
- The folk laws of argument and attention