e is
inaccuracy.

=122. Accuracy.=--When a reporter is publishing a choice bit of scandal
or a remarkable instance of disregarded duty, it is an easy thing, for
the sake of making the story a good one, or for lack of complete
information, to draw on the imagination or to jump too readily at
conclusions, and so present as facts not only what may be untrue, but
what often later proves entirely false. The ease of the thing is argued
by the frequency with which it is done. Such a reporter does a threefold
harm: he compels his paper to humiliate itself later by publishing the
truth; he causes the public to lose confidence in his journal; and he
does irreparable injury to unknown, innocent persons. The day following
the _Eastland_ disaster in 1915, one Chicago paper ran the list of dead
up to eighteen hundred. A week later the same paper was forced to put
the number at less than nine hundred. A rival publication in the same
city kept its estimate consistently in the neighborhood of nine
hundred, with the resultant effect to-day of increased public confidence
in its statements. In another city of the Middle West judgment for
$10,000 has recently been granted a complainant because one of the city
staff made a rash statement about the plaintiff's "illicit love." The
reporter was discharged, of course, but that did not repair the damage
or reimburse the paper.

=123. Law of Libel.=--Every newspaper man, as a matter of business,
should know the law of libel. It varies somewhat in different states,
but the following brief summary may be taken as a working basis until
the reporter can gain an opportunity to study it in his own state. In
the first place, the law holds responsible not only the owners of the
journal, but the publisher, the editor, the writer of the offending
article, and even any persons selling the paper, provided it can be
proved that they were aware of the matter contained in the publication.
What constitutes libel is equally far-reaching. It is any published
matter that tends to disgrace or degrade a person generally, or to
subject him to public distrust, ridicule, or contempt. Any written
article that implies or may be generally understood to imply reproach,
dishonesty, scandal, or ridicule of or against a person, or which tends
to subject such a person to social disgrace, public distrust, hatred,
ridicule, or contempt, is libelous. Even the use in an article of
ironical or sarcastic terms indicating scorn or co