A Retraction Please: Do print or online media get it right, most?

Picture this recent scenario.

Biola University Associated Students (AS) stages the annual presidential election on a Tuesday and Wednesday, with voting officially over at 7 p.m. For our paper, The Chimes, this is ideal. When the results are tabulated late at night, we will spit out a decisive new headline announcing the winner. Though the news might leak out via the BUBBS network around 11 p.m., the rest of the sleeping student body will not know the news until they wake up on Thursday morning to read a fresh, breaking story on the front page of our beloved weekly, The Chimes.

But does news ever work out the way a journalist wants it to? I think not.



When the election happened a few weeks ago, and the news was phoned into The Chimes' office at 9:30 p.m., I was ecstatic. The victor won by a mere three votes, and students would get that story hot off the press in our newspaper.

But then things started tangling. In a whirlwind of activity, someone demanded a recount, someone discovered a loophole to invalidate the election and someone was un-declared president.

At 2 a.m., when we finally sent the paper to press, the decision was in limbo.

When the result was finalized at 11:49 a.m. the next day, students found out through BUBBS e-mails. The Chimes had not even arrived back from the printer and wouldn't come until 6:30 that night -- well after most students had left for spring break. So, over a week later, students picked up cold copies of The Chimes to read, above the fold, "Gibo's 3-vote presidential victory short-lived; Clarke requests recount, loophole may invalidate election."

The problem? Gibo won anyway. Clarke conceded. The three-vote margin was actually two in the end, and everyone at Biola knew it a week ago.

Cue raucous laughter.

It's a case study into why we need an online edition; it's a study on how the worst gaffes can be in print, not in the volatile, opinion-laced world of online journalism.

But just to be fair, let's see who wins in the war of accuracy -- the solid, tactile print edition or the slippery online editions and fluctuating blogosphere.