“We only have to be right today.”

Those words, leveled at me by an editor during my newspaper days while we debated the accuracy of a story, haunt me every so often. Given the realities of today’s news media–the immediacy of the Internet, social media and the like–I wonder if today he’d say, “We only have to be right for a minute.”

The 24-hour news cycle has put absurd pressures on reporters to get stories out immediately. At the same time public relations people feel the same pressure to get the information reporters seek. The casualties: accuracy and ethics.

It all came back to me Friday morning when CNN reported a U.S. Coast Guard vessel firing on an “unidentified” boat in the Potomac River in Washington, D.C. This news, on September 11 of all days, conjures up terrible images. I made a mental note to check the news later and went back to work.

Later it was revealed that the Coast Guard was conducting a “routine” training exercise on the river. But, by the time the clarification was issued, hundreds of millions of people had already learned of a “suspicious” boat that was cornered by the Coast Guard in the Potomac, just miles from the President.

Fifteen years ago reporters would have had a chance to do their jobs, learn of the training, allay any terrorist jitters and file a story that was much different than the first one that hit the airwaves and the Internet Friday morning.

CNN (and everyone else) had the story wrong. But, as I’m sure my old editor would say, they were right for a minute.