I just read an article wrote by Larry Atkins, a journalist and lawyer, taling about the accuracy of breaking news from twitter, facebook, and other social media. He argued from a view of journalist and mentioned that it is obvious that twitter has brought so much benefit to news consumers-- twitter allows consumers to follow the department of breaking news in real-time by a reporter on the scene. It also allows consumers feel more of a personal connection with the reporter.
But there is one big problem that consumers and media need to concern which is the accuracy of the breaking news from twitter as well as other social media since in breaking news stories, journalists have little time to check facts and verify sources. Atkins mentioned several big news from twitter which are proved not true later.
Actually canards also appear quite often in Chinese version twitter-- weibo. And they often spread quite fast. When so many people in weibo retweet one thing during a short period of time, it is difficult for you to distinguish it whether it is true or false. At most of time, you will regard it as true and retweet it to your friends and followers which makes more people see this fales news.
According to this problem, news consumers should be careful about relying on and trusting breaking news story reports. We need to verify the news through multiple sources before we retweet it to our followers.
resource:
Media and Consumers Must Be Careful in Relying on Twitter for Breaking News
by Larry Atkins
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/larry-atkins/twitter-reporting-pitfalls_b_914873.html
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