Check everything

I felt like a lot of what I read for today was a repeat of ethics class and reporting and writing, but I guess that is a good thing. One thing that stuck out when I read was to never print anything that hasn't been checked. I absolutely hate checking things in my story that I am "sure" are correct. However, I am guilty of making a mistake in a story when I should have double checked what I wrote. It seemed like not a big mistake to me at all but to my source it was. I quoted the police as saying "shattered" instead of "broken". Not a big deal, to me. But they were not happy. Apparently, to police those two words have completely different meanings. Long story short I always check every fact and quote in my stories. I think that is the best piece of advice in what we read. Simple, easy and true. Check everything.