Microblogging is pretty common place these days, with the most popular being of course, Twitter. In 142 characters you can write a miniature blog, a news update or even an opinion piece.
There are other popular microblogging sites including Tumblr and Pinterest however, for a journalist there is nothing more useful than Twitter.
Even the big news outlets use microblogging to their advantage and as Twitter has over 1 billion users it means that breaking news will get to the audience that much faster.
The best things about Twitter for a professional journalist?
- Smartphone app
In seconds you can take a picture from a live event and instantly post it on Twitter to wait for it to spread. Which means anywhere and at any time you have the platform to communicate with the public.
- Hashtags
These obviously aren’t new to you or I but they make it a lot easier to group all tweets of the same topic in one list for journalists to figure out exactly what’s happening as it happens.
- Breaking News
There is nothing as fast as breaking news on Twitter. This can be reporting breaking news or if tweeted by an amateur, it can be used as a source for professional news articles.
And this is where microblogging takes a negative turn…
Although Twitter is the fastest news source, there is also nothing more unofficial. With the ‘facts’ coming out thick and fast in the wake of newsworthy events, there is little to say which is true and which is false. There are countless events where microblogging platforms have come under fire for bearing false news.
Mostly these false stories claim people are dead, who in fact are alive. From serious cases of the victims of the Boston Bombings to the less serious reporting the death of Justin Bieber which of course, was not true.
This is something that needs to be looked into and if you’re reading this with the expectation that most news on Twitter is correct or in some way factual then unfortunately you couldn’t be more wrong. The biggest problem? Speed. Yes the ‘news’ might be false or wrong or incorrect in some way but suddenly its being re-tweeted by thousands of separate people on thousands of separate accounts and suddenly it becomes a source.
There is nothing to stop this and professional news organisations get it wrong sometimes.
I’m going to share with you a great example of how fast a false news story can spread through professional sources and it’s shocking! Ironically the article was about spreading rumors…
My own experience on Twitter usually means that I don’t re-tweet something unless it is verified, for example I will do a quick Google search to see if it is flagged as false (fake stories are usually uncovered pretty fast on the internet).
Equally, my use of Twitter for this ongoing project has shown that you should not promote your blog under false pretences, for example, as discussed in previous posts, I do not post clickbait on Twitter with the sole purpose of gaining page views and I also use relevant hashtags. I do not lie to followers, purporting to be posting about something that I actually am not. The updates I post that feature other people’s content have also been reviewed by myself and I tend to post unbiased content that feature both sides of an opinion/argument.
The project has taught me that you shouldn’t feel that there are hoards of rules when using Twitter as this ruins the experience of using it. It is too much of a useful tool to worry about regulations and microblogging can be a very valuable format to a journalist, however there is the usual online etiquette. I have learnt this over time and you will too.
At the end of the day, if you’re not spreading false news then you’re doing okay. Just remember how fast the internet is.
Hopefully I’ve managed to enlighten you on the world of false news and you’ll think twice before re-tweeting something in the future!
Journalizm Speak 