Of course there will be mistakes, journalists will say, because that is an inevitable part of the process of getting to the story fast and first. And the mistakes are usually small, and in the details. Overall, they are telling the story right, or so the claim goes.
Another strand of defence takes the view that journalists have to write for a paying audience, so the first priority is not strictest standards of truth. Journalism is always partly an entertainment business - it is not science or law - people have to want to read it.
Few journalists go into the business to set the record straight, and whatever they
might say, few readers ignore a big or entertaining story just because it might not be true. At present the media is full of stories about 'Paul the Psychic Octopus', able to pick the results of World Cup football matches. Is Paul really psychic? I suspect not, and that's not the point. The story is too much fun to talk about truth.
Moreover, every journalist has their own take on what is and what is not important. Filtering the mass of information flowing into the modern newsroom and then picking the handful of stories to follow up that day is as much art as science, and every journalist will have a different set of priorities.
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