Get it right or when first is worst

The journalism industry may need to replace its long-held mantra "get it right" with a new saying, thanks to the "get it first" phenomenon that has overtaken the news media industry in the last several years.
"No one will remember if you got it first by a few minutes (or seconds), but they will remember if you got it wrong."
And that's what CNN has ahead of it. The "most trusted" network has become a running gag ("According to CNN, Col. Mustard was found holding the candlestick in the parlor") thanks to reporting this afternoon that there was an arrest made in the Boston Marathon bombing.
In its exuberance to be first, CNN failed to second- and third-check the information. It went with a "reliable source" who turned out to be not so reliable.
There is a journalism saying that applies in this case: "If your mother tells you she loves you, check it out."
To top it off, AP quickly followed suit, adhering to the new aggregating/collective style of journalism. The news cooperative also apparently just took CNN's reporting as the gospel. To AP's defense, CNN is mostly reliable but the AP reporter still shouldn't have assumed the report was credible. But AP may have simply been aggregating, the new journalism word for "posting what everyone else is reporting" on your website. AP did pull the story from its feed. However, just as you can't pull a bullet back after you pull the trigger, you can't bring a story back once you push "send."
And this leads to where one news source reports something which leads others to play "Little Sir Echo," with  some crediting the original source and others not, misleading their readers/viewers into thinking they had come up with the report.
The CNN report no doubt drew a lot of "clicks" and "visits" to cnn.com, which is good news for the digital advertising model: Every click is revenue.
Which could lead to a frightening trend in journalism: Forget the real stories, the stories that have real meaning and importance to society. Go for the story that will get the biggest bang or, rather, the most hits.
I dread that day because that's when journalism - and society - will take the biggest hit, and it won't be in a good way.