It is not just in blogs that “immedeacy is more important than accuracy” to borrow the words of Nick Denton. The same sometimes goes for traditional online media. Today, the hottest news story in Sweden is whether Italian striker Francesco Totti would get suspended for spitting Danish player Christian Poulsen (Sweden faces Italy tomorrow in Euro 2004). In the race for getting the news out first, Swedish tabloid Aftonbladet jumped the gun and declared that UEFA had decided to suspend Totti. Problem was, they hadn’t.
The article was withdrawn for a short while and a media culpa was published, blaming “technical problems”! “Due to a technical error Aftonbladet previously reported that Totti had been suspended”.
Update: Totti did indeed get suspended, and the media culpa was lifted from aftonbladet.se shortly after.