The Speed of Social Media Can Make Heroes and Villains

Chris Brogan retweeted an article by Katie Johnston Chase from the Boston Globe on Logan Airport's social media that caught my eye. It seems the Boston airport has a twitter feed that includes prompt answers to traveler's questions, gives tips on places to eat, flight delay info, airfare promotions, and personal greetings to travelers. Chase pointed out that a blind traveler having a wi-fi problem with voice activation software got a fix and a follow-up within the hour. The traveler pointed out that was faster than help he usually gets over the phone.

Social media can make heroes. Fast reporting of approaching storms, warnings of road closures and delays, even life-saving information on disasters. The speed at which information travels on social media can facilitate lightning quick solutions to debilitating problems.

But as much as it can make heroes of some, it can make villains of others. Lives can be shattered by misinformation, gossip goes viral, and rumors take off like wildfire on a windy day. Remember the" Jeff Goldblum is dead" twitter scandal last year that culminated in Goldblum's appearance on Stephen Colbert's show saying, "here's proof the dead can tweet"? And then there was the Perez Hilton/Miley Cyrus debacle. We can sort of laugh at these examples of celebrity gossip because they entertain us. Honestly, I expect some of this, especially from people who write for magazines like the National Enquirer. But what about newspaper reporters tweeting rumors and grapevine reports?

In the mad rush to always be first, legitimate journalists are joining the rumor mill mindset--publishing without fact checking. I agree that good reporting thrives on pushing the envelope, but publishing without fact checking for the sake of speed can be dangerous. There is a race to tweet now and correct later. Maybe I'm just living in an old school idealistic world. Cultural expectations are changing the way we communicate and I guess I have to keep up.

According to Kevin Loker, who wrote a commentary titled, "A Tragedy of Errors: Twitter, Headlines and Internet Habits, there are two "monkey wrenches" associated with mistakes on twitter, one of which doesn't apply to mistakes in print or on the web.

Monkey Wrench #1 still applies. People aren’t going to scan your Twitter feed for corrections. But there’s also…


Monkey Wrench #2: Twitter is live, and people are using it as their news source. More and more, people will use the information they get in 140 characters or less on Twitter as their knowledge source for the day, without visiting an actual news site (and let alone picking up something in print). This is not what everyone does, but as we grow more and more wired to technology and “instant information,” it is important to note that some do. I know many people, including sometimes regrettably myself, who will retweet news material without clicking through the link. Is this ideal? By all means no. But it is a cultural practice.

 The practice of retweeting without reading the link first is just one of the problems twitter can create. Today, I read an online apology from a newspaper reporter who had written a hasty blog entry and tweeted out the arrest of a couple of college basketball players based on "rumor has it" and "heard it through the grapevine." The writer had been called out by a fan commenting on the post and he professionally admitted he was hasty. Good job--takes some gutts. It's not everyday we see someone relent on a social media mistake. I appreciated it. At the same time, I asked myself, "does our quest to be the first to report on something via social media tempt us to compromise?" If so, how do we temper that?