As a former journalist turned PR flack, I have to say I'm astounded at how often my former colleagues--general AND trade--miss the "accurate and fair" mark.

To be fair, many of the journalists I deal with have practically no time to think about what they're about to write or to fact-check. After the past two-plus years of falling media revenues and increased workload, if they want to feed themselves and their families, they not only have to feed to print beast that they've always had to feed, but are also now doing the feeding of the print beast that their recently laid-off colleagues used to do while also feeding the new Web, conference, and newsletter beasts.

In addition to the hysterical cries that Howard has written of on his blog, my fear is that it could lead to a death spiral for the media: more and more errors leading to less and less trust of the media--from both the readers AND the sources.