During a walk home from the bus stop in June 2009, Twitter told me that Michael Jackson was dead. After dinner at my in-laws in February this year, Facebook told me that Whitney Houston had died. However, in both instances, I relied on the confirmation of news sources like CNN and TMZ to confirm the facts.
Socialmediatoday.com released an infographic in June that details how we now get our news. Although the article’s title notes “How Social Media is Replacing Traditional Journalism as a News Source,” social media is still third behind TV news and newspapers as a top source for news. In fact, thanks to social media, traffic to news sites has increased 57%.
Though more than 50% of people learned about breaking news via social media versus traditional news sources, the infographic also shows that about half the news that breaks via social media turns out to be false.
So what does this tell us about the way we receive news today? One, the news cycle is definitely condensed. News outlets used to have time to confirm facts before reporting. However, the internet and social media have upped the pressure to be first and accurate. Two, as news consumers, we must be diligent about confirming the facts for ourselves and not feeding into the “be the first” mentality.
Hold off on retweeting that news story or sharing it on Facebook, especially if it seems outrageous or downright unbelievable. Poke around to see what other news outlets are saying.
Share with us: have you ever read breaking news via social media outlets only to find out later that it’s false or inaccurate? How do you judge the accuracy of news information before you share it with others?
Being that I freelance, I have a lot to say on this topic! I always try and use reputable and timely sources. Because anyone can publish quickly online, a reader should really be careful. As you’ve pointed out, there’s tons of faulty information. Plus there’s lots of outdated stuff too. That’s a pet peeve of mine. Articles without publishing dates. Many post without a date because they think the value of their post will last longer. For me, no date = no use!
Great post. I never realized that about half of the news that breaks on social media is false. As a social media manager I don’t share information without verification because I don’t want to put my credibility into question. Thanks for sharing great info!
Thanks for sharing. I agree with Louise. The no date thing is a pet peeve of mine.
Great post…I too hear many things from social media sources and then check a more reputable site to confirm!
With my librarian background, my kneejerk reaction to all news, social or otherwise, is to put on my reference hat and hunt around. I don’t do exhaustive searching, but I do search usually several different types of outlets to read the various perspectives, and usually by that time I can get a sense of whether something is false or not. And with Twitter I usually research the profile of who’s doing the tweeting, what their past tweets are and if they are consistent. It’s not foolproof methodology, but it helps – and with such a condensed news cycle, I have to move quickly!