One of the advantages bloggers have over traditional journalists is speed of publication – they can put material on their blogs faster than newspapers can print articles and editorials. But posting too quickly can sacrifice accuracy - and the need for speed can become a disadvantage.

Traditional journalists are all too familiar with the need to balance speed with accuracy. After all, established news publications’ profitability lies in the attention-grabbing ability of their material. Scooping a breaking story is more likely to grab readers’ attention than a well-researched article that comes out the next day.

But as every professional journalist knows, it’s just as important, probably even more so, to ensure that what gets published is factually true and objective. Otherwise, the publisher is open to charges of libel and misrepresentation of facts - and even if the case never makes it to court, the ensuing damage to the credibility of the publisher can undermine its ability to sell a single issue in the future.

Last week, ZDNet, an online provider of news and documents, retracted a story posted by one of its bloggers stating that Yahoo! had provided the Iranian government with names and E-mail addresses of Iranian Yahoo! users during the election protests. The post went live before Yahoo! responded-and Yahoo! denied the charges. ZDNet admitted in its retraction that the post was based on information from a single source “who had a clear agenda” and that it had never contacted Yahoo! for verification of the alleged facts or a response to the charges made in the blog post.

As ZDNet posted in its retraction, “Blog networks still need to follow Journalism 101.”

Even a solitary blogger, unconnected to any news organization, needs to follow Journalism 101 and verify the objectivity and accuracy of its sources - and not simply post information based solely on a single source. It’s not hard to extrapolate that the deeper pockets of established news organizations give them added protection from published inaccuracy liability that bloggers just don’t have access to.

So make sure all your facts are correct before you publish - and give the other side a chance to respond before you put a single word online. If you break a false story, that story could break you.