How Reliable Is Twitter?

Twitter is increasingly used by average citizens to share breaking news and information before typical journalists, but how reliable is this method of shared intelligence?

In a piece by The Root's Natalie Hopkinson, the author discussed the availability of immediate news updates and the ability to hear one person's voice quickly and succinctly. However, Hopkinson pointed out some major flaws with Twitter's reliability as a news source.

Though one can receive immediate information from others on Twitter, the reliability of said information is questionable. Anyone and everyone can say exactly what they want, and it is up to readers to decipher what is accurate or relevant.

But how is this different from all the other media we encounter? To exist in a society where we are innundated with information on everything under the sun, we need to be capable of critically examining what concepts and ideas we embrace.

We have developed different ways to hone in on the information that is relevant and valuable. For instance, we are used to examining sources when considering information: every student has been warned away from using Wikipedia because of its communal but largely unsubstantiated knowledge. However, with a medium like Twitter this becomes difficult to do.

Twitter offers its users a sentence and a photo to identify themselves. Unless if a user is linked to a source who is already considered reputable in our minds (ex. a name brand or news organization we recognized before Twitter), the opinions or statements of that user are considered unreliable.

Hopkinson cites the incident when someone yelled, "You lie!" during Obama's speech to Congress last September. In moments, Twitter users had identified the man as Rep. Joe Wilson, gave his phone number and listed his Web site. Another link was produced giving readers the opportunity to donate funds to his political oponent.

Hopkinson reflects on this scenario and wonders what might have happened if Wilson hadn't been the culprit. If Wilson was identified, even wrongly, the same immediate consequences would result. Twitter users are not subject to any official censorship if the information they report happens to be incorrect. With mediums like Twitter and Wikipedia, the only fact-checkers are other citizens. Is this enough?

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Yahoo Puts its Comment Feature Back Up

After three years, Yahoo News has decided to reinstate the comment feature to its stories.

In an article by Joseph Tartakoff, Yahoo says that the decision to pull comment boards off the site was made in 2006 because of "poor quality of discussion". The company has added filters this time to try and keep quality comments at the top and control offensive ones.

But why did Yahoo News make the decision to put comment boards back up in the first place? Mark Walker, head of Yahoo News in North America, said users basically demanded it.

“We sort of looked at our customer satisfaction research and some of the feedback from the audience was that the right to comment was sort of an extension of their first amendment rights,” he says.

People are already using this right to its full extent on the site, with one story having more than 2,200 comments on it.

This is just more proof that news consumers have a lot of say in what the future of the media will look like.

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Politics Cymru

Three former Welsh journalism students are changing the way that political endeavors are being reported online. Cemlyn Davies, Steffan Powell, and Glyn Tansley were assigned as students to cover a beat on the Welsh Assembly.

The three were frustrated by their inability to get into the council because they were just student journalists. Out of this frustration Davies, Powell, and Tansley created the blog sight Politics Cymru.

Since creating the sight the three have had better reception and cooperation from the Welsh Government.

"The Assembly press office came round to the idea that we were here to stay." said Tansley.

The sights specialism and approach to political reporting has won it many loyal followers. Tansley accredits this gain in readers to the lack of political reporting that goes on in the Welsh Assembly.

The sight was named one of Total Politics magazine's top political blogs and the three creators have ridden the success of this website to greater heights.

Davies has landed a job at the BBC while the other two creators, Powell and Tansley, who continue to run the sight are involved in changing the structure of local news programming.

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Newspapers Pro or Con: Citizen Journalism Networks

Many newspapers have now joined citizen journalism networks. The main concern about this is whether there are more positive things that can happen compared to the negative. One of the largest concerns seems to be the actual indepth perception. While these networks simply post breaking and critical stories, they do not always add detailed information that comes out later. the main concern is to inform of the current and seem to be careless about the past.

A positive aspect of this idea is that you will be able to gain income from the many advertisers that are already set up with citizen journalism network. The choice is what you want: profits or well developed stories.

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