Editing Journalistic scandal (section)

==Common characteristics==
Journalistic scandals include:  [[plagiarism]], [[Lie#Fabrication|fabrication]], and [[Purposeful omission|omission]] of information; activities that violate the law, or violate ethical rules; the altering or staging of an event being documented; or making substantial reporting or researching errors with the results leading to [[libel]]ous or defamatory statements.

All journalistic scandals have the common factor that they call into question the integrity and truthfulness of [[journalism]]. These scandals shift public focus and scrutiny onto the media itself.
Because credibility is journalism's main currency, many news agencies and [[mass media]] outlets have [[Journalism ethics and standards|strict codes of conduct]] and enforce them, and use several layers of editorial oversight to catch problems before stories are distributed.

However, in some cases, investigations later found that long-established journalistic [[checks and balances]] in the newsrooms failed. In some cases, senior editors fail to catch bias, libel, or fabrication inserted into a story by a reporter. 

In other cases, the checks and balances were omitted in the rush to get an important, 'breaking' news story to press (or on air). Furthermore, in many libel and defamation cases, the publication would have had full support of editorial oversight in case of yellow journalism.