Reporter's Notebook: With Tubbs Jones' Death, Media Fumbles - Politics | Republican Party | Democratic Party | Political Spectrum

One morning, there was a fatal accident. One person died. One lived. As always, I dutifully jotted down the information from the report. And a few hours later, I announced to all of Ohio who died and who survived this crash.

But I was wrong. See, the police transposed the names of the victim and the survivor on the report. So you can only imagine the feeling in my stomach when the survivor's family called to tell me I had it wrong.

But I'd done due journalistic diligence. My saving grace? I attributed the report of the death to someone. An all important line that said, "Police say so-and-so died last night in a wreck..." And that's all journalism is: not reporting your own conclusions, but what others are saying.