DISQUS

Louis Gray · 11 months ago

Post by Mona: http://www.friendfeed.com/monasfeed

Daniel J. Pritchett · 11 months ago

I'm seeing a serious rendering fail on that page all of a sudden. I wonder what's come up?

scott anderson · 11 months ago

My trust in a news service depends on who their sources are for their reports. There are good reasons why MSM journalists try to get confirmation on a story from multiple sources before reporting it. Who was BreakingNewsOn's source for the explosion report?

Mona N. · 11 months ago

@BreakingNewsOn has never revealed their sources and calling them "bulletins". I was EXTREMELY weary and skeptical, so watched and compared them to major networks for about six months before deciding to follow them. I use them more of as a "heads-up" type service, and if there are news bits I want to know more about, I wait for the piece to show up across the board and compare stories. That said, there's more information on their blog.

Louis Gray · 11 months ago

My biggest issue with this example is that if there is a EXPLOSION that ROCKS MANHATTAN... you better darn well make sure its true. That's like yelling FIRE in a downtown theater. Doesn't anybody think NYC is a little weary of bomb threats, real or otherwise? I don't care where the news "breaks"... get it right.

Ken Sheppardson · 11 months ago

Watching the misinformation and misinterpretation flying around RE e.g. Steve Jobs--when all it would take is maybe three clicks to find out the official "facts"--makes me start to wonder whether anyone should ever believe anything that's not a primary source.

Daniel J. Pritchett · 11 months ago

Primary sources aren't always motivated to tell the truth in a timely manner, so the media gets excited about scoops.

Morgan Haley · 11 months ago

Do you fully trust ANY news source?

Mona N. · 11 months ago

Goldman, the perfect example. Wasn't he touting before MacWorld that Jobs is fine and his health is fine? And he works for CNBC. People were harping on Gizmodo, saying it wasn't a "reliable source" but look who isn't the "reliable one" now. Bottomline: who knows WHAT to believe or trust.

Ken Sheppardson · 11 months ago

Yup. And everything in media these days seems to reward "first" rather than "right".

Tutivillus Grift · 11 months ago

Hell no!

Mona N. · 11 months ago

And LG is right. When I first saw in all caps EXPLOSION ROCKS MANHATTAN, my first thought was DUCK.

Ken Sheppardson · 11 months ago

BreakingNews has always done this sort of thing. Remember the "US attack on Syria" a few weeks/months ago? I thought not. But BreakingNews sure jumped on it, spreading whatever rumors it could dig up as "news"

Mona N. · 11 months ago

It's not just BreakingNews though. I can think of NUMEROUS examples where people harp rumors. I really want to go back to all the threads and say: I TOLD YOU SO but that won't lead to anything positive lol.

Ken Sheppardson · 11 months ago

Remember "FLASH! US FIGHTER PLANES, HELICOPTERS ATTACK TARGETS WITHIN SYRIA. DETAILS SOON."? http://is.gd/fUsu

Ken Sheppardson · 11 months ago

These days anything from BreakingNews in all caps just means "hey, you might want to go check out the reputable news outlets"

Brian Roy · 11 months ago

The thing about using Twitter as a news source is you have to wait for the picture to resolve. It is like a Polaroid - the first tweets are often sent as soon and the film ejects from the camera... it is only as time passes that the picture clarifies. What Twitter does is allow you to "tune in" if it interests you and watch it develop in real time.

Daniel J. Pritchett · 11 months ago

Woah, where do the amazing iPhone screenshots come from?

I'm also kinda freaked out by Twitter Search's refusal to forget anything ever.

Daniel J. Pritchett · 11 months ago

I'm okay with people retracting tweets, even news agencies. Someone on FF mentioned yesterday that the average drive-by reader won't notice the retraction if it comes in a later tweet. Some bad tweets just need to disappear. EDIT: At least until we can annotate them with our explanations after the fact.

Mona N. · 11 months ago

Hey Daniel! The iPhone has screen shot capabilities. :) And I am glad Twitter Search displays the cached Tweets - actually, LG just told me about them before I published.

As for Tweet retractions, I think it's OK for Tweets to be deleted but retractions should stay intact. We are all human and allowed mistakes, admitting mistakes would make a person more credible - especially from a "news source". Thing that concerns me the most is, with the ease of content publishing, mistakes WILL happen, and since we will soon live in an all digitized age, certain guidelines should be set. I am all about free CORRECT speech. ;) Thanks for the comment - hope all is well.

Daniel J. Pritchett · 11 months ago

I don't think my iTouch has the screenshot magic. Maybe I just never noticed. Yet another reason my Touch isn't as cool as the real thing.

As much as I agree that glossing over the failures of a news organization is a bad idea the design of twitter just doesn't allow for the sort of post-hoc clarifications we really need. No threading, no annotation, no nothing.

Thanks for the kind wishes, we're doing pretty well!

Louis Gray · 11 months ago

My biggest issue @BreakingNewsOn in this example is that if there is a EXPLOSION that ROCKS MANHATTAN... you better darn well make sure its true. That's like yelling FIRE in a downtown theater. Doesn't anybody think NYC is a little weary of bomb threats, real or otherwise? I don't care where the news "breaks"... get it right.

Mona N. · 10 months ago

Exactly - and people around here still remember 9-11 like it was yesterday. Terrible.

Craig · 11 months ago

I agree Louis, especially in NYC, be careful about what you say. I think overall you have to give these top resources the benefit of the doubt. You can always make your own decisions within seconds whether you trust them or not. People/sources that cry wolf will gain bad PR very quickly.

Mona N. · 10 months ago

But what about the people that can't make those decisions, that don't check multiple sources, that rely on these so-called "trusted resources"? Shouldn't the retraction be left up so they can assess and draw their own conclusions? How many false alarms do we need?

Mike Reynolds · 11 months ago

More than I trust FoxNews

Corvida Raven · 11 months ago

I trust most of my Twitter sources. Then again, it's up to us to also make sure that the facts are verified, which is why you went on to Google the statement that was made.

Mona N. · 10 months ago

It sucks how we have to fact check everything now a days, since so many news sources are even more unreliable with the ease of publishing. Lately, I don't care to be the first that knows everything anymore lol

Thanks for the comment :)

Corvida Raven · 10 months ago

No problem and I agree. Being first when it comes to this field is actually becoming quite tedious, strenuous, and all around boring.

Eric Berlin · 11 months ago

I think as these new forms of micropublishers emerge, they will have to compete with everyone else. If the credibility of a BreakingNewsOn suffers, for instance, people will not be as interested in what they have to publish/tweet.

Mona N. · 10 months ago

Since everyone has a different criteria of credibility, what are the boundaries? Who sets them? Not just with @BreakingNewsOn, but with all publications. - wow, I sound kind of paranoid LOL

Victor Ganata · 11 months ago

I think it's a huge mistake to trust any single news source.

Mona N. · 10 months ago

Hey Victor - definitely agreed. I use at least three US sources and a few global publications. But more and more, people are participating in sites and services where they can easily access information. What about hte people that don't double, triple, or quad check sources?

Jesse Stay · 11 months ago

I don't use Twitter to get news from established sources. Twitter is a discovery source, where I like to get my news directly from the source. I use RSS for established news.

What iPhone app are you using for Twitter? I love the organization of that - the others are so complex!

Mona N. · 10 months ago

Ya - neither do I. I use it to keep up with headlines to stay in the loop, but unless I see it in my Reader from multiple sources, I don't trust or believe.

I'm using Twitterfon which I love love love!
Thanks for the comment, Jesse :)

ChangeForge | Ken Stewart · 11 months ago

Mona, umm... let me see news coming from a service called, "Twitter"? Didn't the microblogging service get it's name from the old saying, "A little birdie told me?"

How much do I trust gossip? Let me see - Not.

Don't get me wrong, I love juicy news just as much as anyone and really get glued to big news stories for days and weeks... but not from Twitter.

My first reaction is just as Jesse suggested: Discover and then seek clarification and verification from another source. Now this is coming from the guy you showed how to use Google, though. So how much do you trust this source? ;-P

Mona N. · 10 months ago

hahahhaha LOVE how you threw the question back at me ;) I wrote up there to Jesse, but I do not trust just one source - I am border line anal and read multiple (global) sources in Japanese, English, British English, and Australian English (Inquisitr ftw!).But my question is, as Web 2.0 becomes more widely spread, there are people who trust 'bigger names' or users that have a lot of followers. Isn't it the responsibility of the news sources TO give us CORRECT information? The problem has extended beyond Twitter, and to major networks. ie: CNBC...

ChangeForge | Ken Stewart · 10 months ago

Yes, but they are human. I saw a local anchor yesterday and she is blazing a trail using this stuff. She was asked this question as well, and her response was that she has gotten to know whom she can trust, and will cite them - but include "an online chat room visitor reports..." or "according to an chat room source..." indicating the source has not been validated.

She also went on to say that she doesn't make a habit of this as the station has a policy of fact checking and confirmation. So you are right. I also would assert that we can't believe everything we hear. Ultimately the individual must take some level of responsibility for the information and determine how best to act (or react).

So both, in a perfect world - right? You do, however, have a right to banish this source IMO.

clarke thomas · 10 months ago

I trust no single news source. I double check with 3+ source if it's relevant.

dcfemella · 10 months ago

Mona, I also freaked when I saw that and started looking around. I also sent them a message via Twitter, and they said it was a mistake. They also lost some credibility with me because no followup message apologizing for the heinous error was published. It definitely shows that you never take anything face value unless you see it in two news sources or more.

Urs E. Gattiker · 10 months ago

Thanks for this post, quite interesting but like everything else in life, news providers are not infallible are they. And you did the best thing you could do, double-check the facts. We just started:

http://Twitter.com/WEFdavos

We hope not to make the same mistakes when it comes to reporting the latest about the World Economic forum meeting in Davos. Nevertheless, this weekend I continue cutting my time commitment as far as Twitter is concerned:

http://commetrics.com/?p=864

It takes to much time.

Thanks for an interesting post and I will continue to double-check my Twitter sources to avoid this problem if at all possible.

Urs http://Twitter.com/ComMetrics