Why Social Media Has Become A Blessing And A Curse For Journalists

Journalism has come a long way since Gutenberg invented the printing press in the 1400s. Since 1991, when the internet became publicly available, the way that people have been going about their daily business has completely changed. As I have mentioned many a time on this blog, we are constantly online and have never been more reliant on the World Wide Web in both our personal and professional lives.

In the same way that audiences can be updated with breaking news instantly via their smartphones or on the internet, so can journalists. According to a 2010 study by Jennifer Alejandro, five out of six editors surveyed said that speed and immediacy were the most useful aspects of social media in receiving news and I’m sure that eight years on, this is still the case.

Having worked as a reporter myself, I understand just how vital these social platforms can be in finding, researching and sharing stories. Every day I would scour through Twitter in the hope of finding a gem of information that I could turn into a story. And nine times out of ten I would hit the jackpot. On the 10% of days when I didn’t find anything useful on the Twitter feed, I used the platform (and other social media and search engines) to search for potentially relevant information.

But with being able to find information quickly, comes the need to post it even faster. Alejandro said that the idea of getting the “scoop” and “breaking news” is now based on what is “trending” on social media or what is ranked higher on search engines. Alejandro said:

“Journalists are forced to accelerate the traditional journalistic process because people now want real time information. People want the information as soon as the journalist or the media outlet receives it.

“So to sit on a story until it is complete is to risk being out-scooped by competitors or even worse to be dubbed slow by the public. It is now a necessity to give the audience bits of information at a time, as soon as the information is available. No media outlet can afford to wait.”

This perhaps explains why information about the alleged Oxford Circus shooting mentioned in my previous post Should The Alleged Oxford Circus Shooting Have Been Reported? was shared before professionals had evaluated the situation, and why the misinformation was spread by so many, so fast. As I concluded in this post, I think that informing people about potential issues and dangers is important, but if information is shared too quickly it can cause more harm than good.

Perhaps this is too big of an ask, but I think that in today’s digital age, journalists should value accurate, true reporting over being the first to break a story, regardless of its content.

This story is published in The Startup, Medium’s largest entrepreneurship publication followed by 285,454+ people.

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