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RESEARCHACCURACY IN LOCAL TELEVISIONNEWS—REVISITED: ARE THINGS ANYDIFFERENT 25 YEARS LATER?Mark D. Harmon, University of Tennessee, Knoxvillemdharmon@utk.eduSteven McClung, Florida State Universitysteven.mcclung@comm.fsu.eduAmy Varecka, University of Tennessee, Knoxvillevareck@earthlink.netNews organizations strive for accuracy both as an ethical imperative and as aneconomic reality. Error-prone news organizations may lose both credibility andaudience. Surprisingly few research projects, however, have addressed local televisionnews accuracy. This project addressed that deficiency. One previous work, Singletaryand Lipsky (1977), provided guidance for this project. The current work can andshould be considered an update of that good, but dated, 1976 research project onaccuracy in local television news. The results should help identify problem areas fornews directors. In turn, the results may help in the design of fact checking to reducesuch factual errors.LITERATURE REVIEWTelevision news has been in the spotlight recently for mistakes, jumping the gun, andother problems with accuracy. Source credibility always has been an issue with massmedia, notably the credibility problems associated with yellow journalism. In anattempt to correct those problems, and re-gain credibility lost during the heyday of thattrend, print organizations began to establish standards, professional organizations andjournalism schools to help restore lost credibility. “Yellow journalism was only onetradition in the news industry. Other news outlets, both print and broadcast, laterdeveloped professional norms that committed journalists to providing independentinformation so as to serve the public interest,” (Croteau and Hoynes, 2000).Television, especially network television, has been criticized recently because of theproblems associated with the 2000 presidential results. “Early in the evening-and longbefore Dan Rather reached cruising speed -he observed, ‘The race for president is jarlidtight.’ But the networks blew it making an errant call, twice, for the state thatdetermined the outcome of presidential election. Not only did ABC, CBS, NBC Foxand CNN give Florida to Gore, then withdraw it and later hand it to Bush, they also46Feedback April 2003 (Vol. 44, No. 2)