3 ms·
It might rather be that we can't verify sources and facts on social media effectively. Believe me when I say we went down that rabbit hole as well. I even aske
by iamdave 10y ago
It might rather be that we can't verify sources and facts on social media effectively.
Believe me when I say we went down that rabbit hole as well. I even asked if perhaps there was something to the notion as to the unreliability of sources on social media and if that was the case, how do we create incentives for or otherwise insulate journalism beyond the baked-in expectation that journalists will perform with more earnest intent to disseminate to verify and seek out sources. We expect a journalist to dig for qualitative sources; we expect integrity; what do we do when that doesn't happen? What's next?
He directly said "We ignore it. We ignore the problem and it will stop being one". I couldn't find a way to agree with that, I tried providing a subsequent argument that if there were a problem with social media mucking a story-where was the inherent problem in pointing to a fixed point in time where it happened (using examples he offered to the debate) as a means of understanding what went wrong in the process, and working to do better. That didn't get far. Trust me, I was there.
At the end of the day, I had to rest the argument because he just didn't think social media had any bearing for journalists, and I had to try even harder to avoid saying things that were just plain rude after my position was continuously mischaracterized and parroted back as ideological soundbytes.
Still, I think it's a critical conversation the journalism world ought to be having, and I don't think "Well just tell journalists to ignore social media" will solve that.