"To get it first is important - but more important is to get it right"
About this Quote
In a business built on adrenaline, Jessica Savitch draws a clean moral line: speed is seductive, accuracy is sacred. The dash in her sentence acts like a newsroom brake pedal. She grants the industry its favorite excuse - "first" really does matter - then flips the hierarchy with a quiet, cutting turn: "but more important is to get it right". It is not anti-competition; it's an insistence that the competition has consequences.
Savitch was a broadcast journalist in an era when television news was becoming a high-stakes, personality-driven race for ratings. The 1970s and early 80s were the proving ground for the modern "breaking news" posture: live shots, urgent music, anchors turned into celebrities. In that environment, being first isn't just professional pride; it's market share. Savitch's line reads as both credo and reprimand, aimed at producers, rivals, and perhaps herself.
The subtext is reputational and ethical: if you publish fast and wrong, you don't merely lose a point on the scoreboard; you erode the one resource journalism cannot buy back with better lighting or tighter scripts - trust. "Right" here isn't only factual correctness. It's also judgment: context, verification, restraint. Savitch is arguing that journalism's power comes from its refusal to let urgency become an alibi. In today's algorithmic attention economy, her prioritization feels less quaint than radical: the real scoop is credibility.
Savitch was a broadcast journalist in an era when television news was becoming a high-stakes, personality-driven race for ratings. The 1970s and early 80s were the proving ground for the modern "breaking news" posture: live shots, urgent music, anchors turned into celebrities. In that environment, being first isn't just professional pride; it's market share. Savitch's line reads as both credo and reprimand, aimed at producers, rivals, and perhaps herself.
The subtext is reputational and ethical: if you publish fast and wrong, you don't merely lose a point on the scoreboard; you erode the one resource journalism cannot buy back with better lighting or tighter scripts - trust. "Right" here isn't only factual correctness. It's also judgment: context, verification, restraint. Savitch is arguing that journalism's power comes from its refusal to let urgency become an alibi. In today's algorithmic attention economy, her prioritization feels less quaint than radical: the real scoop is credibility.
Quote Details
| Topic | Decision-Making |
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