futurejournalismproject:

Felix: There’s been a lot of shamefacedness and embarrassment on Twitter from…

@poynterinstitute: Agreed if you include his statement that the organizations themselves (eg., @WSJ, @Reuters, etc) need be held to a higher standard. Doesn’t wash if @NYTimes posts errors and comes back saying, Don’t mind that, it’s idle water cooler gossip. — Michael

poynterinstitute:

Agree?

felixsalmon:

There’s been a lot of shamefacedness and embarrassment on Twitter from people who tweeted the false news that Piers Morgan had been suspended from CNN. … That said, one of the things I like about Twitter is that it behaves in many ways a lot more like a newsroom than a newspaper. Rumors happen there, and then they get shot down — no harm no foul.

I think our main accounts have to be super careful and check before posting anything. On my personal account, I feel it’s more about sharing what’s out there, but since people have started to rely on me, I have to be more careful even on my personal account.

In the case of the Piers suspension, it came from what most would consider a reliable source, the anchor at Channel 4 news in the UK. Unfortunately, that person was getting their information from a fake account on Twitter.

The lesson here is, as it often is, that it’s better to be right than to be first. I’m trying to hold myself to a higher standard and I like to think I have in the past (otherwise they wouldn’t have relied on me to begin with), I don’t think I did in this case.

(via futurejournalismproject)