We all know that social media is challenging and redefining traditional journalistic standards. When it comes to facebook and twitter people are now using these sites as a way of presenting news as it is happening. With twitter having the famous 140 character limit, it means that only the essential, most important information is presented on the site immediately and the reader then has to go on to pursue the story further.
Suellen Tapsall (2006) editor of Journalism Theory in Practice explains how the aid of social networking in journalism is rarely compared to print as being on an equal level; they are usually compared against one another as being either positive or negative, and are rarely associated as mutually aiding each other. I think it’s fair to argue that social media, when used appropriately, can definitely aid journalists in sourcing stories.
According to Garbiele Levy (2010) journalists are embracing social media as a new journalistic tool and rather than being threatened by it, they are now using it on a day to day basis. “Social media, rather than heralded as the destructor of journalism and journalistic integrity, has finally begun to play a substantial role in the daily activities of journalists” (Levy 2010).
“The academics who study journalism and working journalists, almost uniformly agree that the changes occurring within the news media industry are both overwhelming and an enormous opportunity for innovation and reinvention” (Levy, 2010).
The following YouTube video highlights how journalists are now utilising social media in the news gather and disseminating process and they even suggest that Twitter is now sometimes replacing media releases and it is being used as a promotional point for journalists to link to stories on news websites.
Online journalism is about immediacy and having a 24 hour service and social media can provide this information fast and easily. Social media is gaining acceptance as a way to source stories and other information as it now fits into the stages of news production in access/observation and distribution. Around 40% of news organisations are using social media to source stories (MEAA, 2010).
“Twitter changed its opening question, ‘what are you doing’ to a different more immediate question ‘what is happening’? In 2009 to accommodate its growing relevance to breaking news“ (Cross, 2011 p.60). So basically day to day tweets tell us what is happening and the journalist’s role is then to conduct further research and verification to tell us what this means.
“In many cases, information initially coming to our attention via Twitter will serve simply as a tip, allowing us to check out and report the information ourselves in the regular way, quoting more solid sources” (Reuters, 2009).
Facebook provides 500 million possible sources of stories, but when it comes to sourcing stories from social media sites how much can we really trust these sources as being reliable?
When it comes to sourcing online it can be hard to distinguish between truth, rumour and outright lies, so how trustworthy are stories that break on facebook or twitter?
“The biggest issue with social media is verification” (Possetti, 2011). Check facts before publishing is not adhered to on social media sites, so credibility becomes hard to find.
Even during the recent London riots a journalist re-tweeted this photo above of an apparent escaped tiger that was actually an image of a circus tiger that escaped in Italy in 2008, so checking the facts and verifying them is essential for journalists sourcing stories from social media sites.
The role of social media is not to be factual or truthful. After all it is SOCIAL media, it’s simply another form of conversation and we can't expect every single tweeter or blogger to adhere to ethical journalistic practice, because they don’t have to. But as journalists we do!
Social media is merely a starting point in the news gathering process and verification is imperative.
“Most blogs, iReports and social media sources should be considered potentially no more reliable than a tabloid newspaper running stories of UFO sightings” (Torres, 2011).
But one question that still remains essential to the use of social media in journalism is whether journalists could cover news in areas that are cut off from the media without social media? Do we rely on social media in times of crisis?
References:
Levy, G. (2010). Social Media and Journalism: How the Internet and Social Networking has Changed Journalism’s Workflow. Viewed 31 August, 2011 http://repository01.lib.tufts.edu:8080/fedora/get/tufts:UA005.005.065.00001/bdef:TuftsPDF/getPDF
Press Club of Long Island. (May 1, 2009). Twitter, Facebook and Why Social Media Matters [Video file] retrieved 31 August, 2011 from http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=34cdYF0w08s&feature=related
Tapsall, S & Varley, C (2006). Journalism: Theory in Practice. Oxford University Press: South Melbourne
Cross, M. (2011). Bloggerati, Twitterati: How Blogs and Twitter are Transforming Popular Culture. ABC-CLIO: California
Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. (2010). Life in the Clickstream II: The Future of Journalism, viewed 31 August 2011, http://www.thefutureofjournalism.org.au/foj_report_vii.pdf
Media Entertainment and Arts Alliance. (2008). Life in the Clickstream: The Future of Journalism, viewed 31 August 2011, http://www.alliance.org.au/documents/foj_report_final.pdf
Reuters. (2011). Handbook of Journalism – Reporting From the Internet, viewed 31 August 2011, http://handbook.reuters.com/index.php/Reporting_from_the_internet
Posetti, J 2011, ‘BBC Social Media Summit Fixates on Creating Open Media’, MediaShift, viewed August 31, 2011, http://www.pbs.org/mediashift/2011/06/bbc-social-media-summit-fixates-on-creating-open-media158.html
Torres, T. (2011). ‘What Role will Develop in Social Media to Replace Traditional Editors?’ Soshable, viewed August 31, 2011, http://soshable.com/what-role-will-develop-in-social-media-to-replace-traditional-editors/
No comments:
Post a Comment