There’s a quote on the wall of The Daily’s newsroom from a previous editor-in-chief that reads: “I would rather run a photo-less story than a libelous one.”

As those in the newsroom recall, the night the quote was written, there was a discussion about which news stories should run the next day. Some of the stories had been fact-checked and worked on for days but had no artwork to go with them. Others needed more work to verify details, but they had great photos ready to run. Some people in the newsroom were ready to compromise on the integrity of a story if it meant having a good-looking paper the next day.

The editor-in-chief wasn’t, and so the quote was born.

This year, our staff has been reminded of the importance of the idea behind that quote — the idea that the integrity and accuracy of a story should come before all else.

About a month ago, The Daily ran a story about a student who said he’d been robbed on multiple occasions, and so he obtained a concealed pistol permit and made an effort to organize other students who also had concealed weapons permits.

The following day, the newsroom started getting calls from local television news stations, and, by that night, the story was on Q13 Fox News. Lexie Krell, the reporter who wrote the original story, spent almost two weeks on it, conducting multiple interviews and researching laws on the issue. Q13 put out its story in a matter of hours, with a blatant factual error in the very first line.

“Two students who were recently attacked have organized armed patrols on campus,” the news anchor announced.

Absolutely false.

Not only had the students not organized any such patrols, they had also never admitted to carrying firearms on campus. That assumption implicated the individuals in illegal activities. (It is illegal to carry firearms on campus.)

That didn’t seem to matter, though, as a link to Q13’s story was featured on the CNN U.S. home page only two days later and was turned around just as quickly by almost every broadcast station, radio show and print publication in the area.

We watched as a bad game of Telephone unfolded before our eyes.

It was as if the story was being mumbled from one person to the next, and suddenly, the original story of one student trying to organize a group of concealed-weapons-permit carriers became a story about armed students roving the campus and surrounding areas. Even people living hundreds of miles away have witnessed equally inaccurate recaps that were played on their own local news stations.

As both producers and consumers of journalism, this experience has taught us some valuable lessons and has reminded us of the importance of that quote on the wall. When we become obsessed with quick-turnaround, bandwagon journalism, the story and issues being discussed suffer.

We need to be critical of the news we consume and demand well-researched and accurate information rather than a quick turnaround that looks — or sounds — good.

This is the opinion of The Daily’s editorial board: Editor-in-Chief Casey Smith, Production Director Colleen Kirsten, Opinion Editor Allen Wagner, Lifestyles Editor Rachel Solomon and Sports Editor Christian Caple. The Daily’s editorial-board meetings are open to all students. Our final editorial-board meeting is next Tuesday, Nov. 24, 2009. We encourage you to come and discuss campus issues with us.