Big mistakes in the Spanish political press in 2012: from glory to ridicule in 24 hours

Abstract

Often what the quality press offers to its readers as a scoop ends up being a mistake. This paper analyzes the major errors published in the politics sections of the five main Spanish newspapers in 2012. The reaction of these newspapers to mistakes reflects as much the credibility crisis of the mainstream media as the relativism with which the ethical codes of these papers are implemented. It reflects also that the real detection of these errors will not lead to the rectification of the newspaper itself but, most of the time, to the reply of competitors or even to the subsequent silence of the authors of the mess with respect to issues which, had they been real scoops, would have had major media coverage over the following days.

KEYWORDS: journalism, sources, ethics, mistakes, rectifications, scoops.