Checking Sources In Corporate Blogging

I was reviewing the Code of Ethics to the Society of Professional Journalists today and the first requirement gave me pause for thought.

— Test the accuracy of information from all sources and exercise care to avoid inadvertent error. Deliberate distortion is never permissible.

Testing the accuracy of information from all sources is not always possible. How many times have you as a blogger checked up on a source quoted in the New York Times or Washington Post article? Probably not all that often because your expectation is that the reporting was accurate. But if you were a professional journalist, you would check the accuracy of those sources, or more likely find your own sources. Instead of just citing a traditional media article, maybe its time to think twice about publishing an article that references a media publication without checking the original source or finding another.