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Networked Blogs
Mar
7
Should social media have waited?
Filed Under social networking
Lisa in a response to my earlier post about the social media networks buzzing over the shooting of 8 teens at a Gary skating rink raised points about social media reporting that need to be examined.
Writes Lisa:
While Social Media broke it was reported incorrectly that children had died…as a journalist our first job is to report the facts…not hearsay not rumors…so while you may honor Mr. Hodge…he didn’t get his facts straight before he went global and that is the wrong way to report something of this magnitude!! Emotionalism has no place in journalism. I give his reporting a thumbs down!
With the ability to publish news items easily and quickly goes much responsibility.
While I didn’t see anything on Twitter from Mr. Hodge saying people had died, there may have been others passing along that information or it may have appeared in other venues. My review of the social media reporting was limited to what was appearing on the #nwindiana #nwi hashtags from Gioperation aka Ryan Hodge on Twitter. I personally didn’t see anything that Lisa alleges on Twitter, but leave a comment with a link pointing to any posts so we can examine same in the comments below.
Let me know what are your thoughts on these various questions regarding media in this age of self-publication, or raise more thoughts of your own so that we can create a discussion that will lead to the betterment of the Northwest Indiana blogging community.
1. What weight should be given to news circulating through social media when the same news isn’t yet confirmed in the more established press?
2. Should there be civics education in our nation’s high schools regarding the media in general (print, TV, internet, blogs, Twitter, cell phone videos, text messaging, etc.), First Amendment issues, publishing in these times of self-publication?
3. What should have been done different by social media users and/or the traditional media outlets?
4. Compare and contrast the reporting regarding the Portage shooting and the Gary shooting. What were the similarities between coverage of the Portage and Gary incidents that you observed? What were the differences?
5. Should social media users have waited until word came from more established / professional media outlets before reporting about the incident?
Comments
3 Responses to “Should social media have waited?”
I see the post about Mr. Hodge understanding that there were deaths was on his Facebook page.
Alright I’ll admit it, I missed this entire story, but in general it’s my opinion that transparency outweighs responsibility of journalism. If journalists want to hold themselves hostage to getting source information and confirming the data, that’s their prerogative. But that means that social media will grab the story first, and old media will be left to tell the rest of the story the following day.
Hi Steve,
If it wasn’t for social media, I wouldn’t have known that there was anything going on in Gary on Friday evening until the news showed up sometime Saturday afternoon. The Post-Tribune had a comprehensive story in its print version on Sunday.
I think one of the lessons is that people have the ability to communicate easily and quickly these days and news spreads like wildfire.
When it doesn’t appear in the major news channels (i.e. established media) that’s when facts start to get distorted as people share the story with others.
While there’s a need to get everything lined up, it is also a lesson that it might be good to put an alert out that reporters are working on a story — even if just a “tease” like the 10 p.m. news likes to do.
I think a lot of the problem had to do with logistics. I bet anything happening close to midnight on a weekend causes problems because most people aren’t available to be interviewed.
One point was that there was no “official” information right after a huge incident happened. Hundreds of people were there. Eight teens were shot. People are going to talk after something like that happens.
In some ways, it’s good that people are still turning to get their news from the local papers and are looking their first to confirm items that they might have heard from friends or coworkers, etc.