Recently USA Today posted a story that, to skip to the high points, indicated more people were getting their news from social media sites like twitter and Facebook than they were from traditional news outlets.
You can read the report here.
I read this stuff and I don't laugh, though I'm tempted. I shake my head, let go with a heavy sigh, and wonder about the intellectual indolence of my fellow citizens.
I wonder about the expectation that news and "information" will be accurate. I wonder about libel law. I wonder about the implications that an errant post will lead to real consequences that will cost lives and increase the misery index.
In my capacity as online editor for a newspaper I encounter the web-centric ignorance of the general public on a daily basis. For example, once I wrote a column about the ACLU and told readers the devil had appeared at my desk. Clearly this was an attempt at satire. Yet readers called to ask if it had really happened and if so, what did the devil look like? Readers accuse us of evil machinations regarding comments on articles, and why are we suppressing them, when the real problem is they need to clear their browser cache. They accuse us of "sensationalizing" stories when in fact they've objected to a police blotter item on our police blotter page. I have the greatest respect for our readers but at the same time I have come to think I can no longer overestimate their intelligence. That must sound arrogant, and I suppose it is. But at the same time these are day-to-day realities with which I'm confronted, and I can't ignore the fact many readers, maybe most, don't have a hootin' hell of an idea what they're talking about.
Enter social media. I'm not a hater of social media. In fact, you could call me an early adopter. Back in the online days of the late '80s I was a habitue of bulletin boards. Ever heard of FidoNet? I'll bet you haven't. I know what Gopherspace is, and Usenet. I jumped on the web and was using the cloud before it was called "the cloud." I have a Live Journal page, multiple Myspace pages, and yes, Facebook, twitter, LinkedIn, Quora, Pinterest, YouTube, MyNetImages, Flickr, and even Yahoo Groups. I've been living online since 1988 and I see the value in social media.
But I also see their liabilities.
One of the web's fundamental flaws is its elimination of gatekeepers. Say what you will, but the world was a better place when people with knowledge were overseeing what was dispensed to the public. They may have possessed uncommon power, and we may have discovered talents who otherwise wouldn't have come to the public's attention without social media, but the truth is the gatekeepers were pretty good at their jobs and the cream almost always rose to the top. Compare that with today's glop of self-published, self-appointed, self-anointed arbitrars of "information." Ridiculous accusations, like President Obama's birth certificate, distract from truly important conversations like how to tame the federal deficit.
Social media posts are important and useful contributions to a news report. We've been alerted by readers to incidents local law enforcement brushed aside as unimportant. We use Facebook and twitter to supplement what we do as journalists. But replace them? I can hardly fathom the thought.
Any rumor, any unsubstantiated accusation, anything that attracts the public eye, can be reported via social media. Is it true? Is it responsible? What are the implications? None of that is reported. What's missing is context - how this affects me. How this affects my community. What I should do in response, if anything.
I recognize the value of social media, but I also recognize social media are one court ruling away from being put out of business. Traditional news outlets - newspapers, radio and TV - are bound by strict standards of libel law that don't apply to social media. The first time a court rules a Facebook poster is responsible for misinformation propagated on his page, the freewheeling days of social media will come to an end. And frankly, they should be required to play by the same rules "traditional media" do. If they're going to share a libelous post by somebody else, they should share in the reparation of damages. Isn't that fair? I think so. No insurance company would take on the libel tab for Facebook.
When this court ruling comes to pass - and it surely will - expect a clamor for gatekeepers. These gatekeepers will consist of professional writers and editors who are trying to maintain a standard of truth and verifiability in an age when sensationalism and popularity trumps all.
On the same day I read social media are replacing traditional news outlets, I read this report: twitter hoaxer comes clean and says: I did it to expose weak media.
I rest my case.
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Comments
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As an erstwhile gatekeeper, one who believed -- and still does -- in the fundamental values of impartiality, fairness, thoroughness, accuracy, speed, vigilance and the like, I am appalled by what is considered "news" on OS and elsewhere.
I too have been online a long time, back to the days of IBM 8088s, dialup modems and BBSs. I eschew the current crop of social media because I value my anonymity and have no wish to expose myself to the vagaries of self-appointed and inept arbiters of taste, style and substance.
Besides: Marshall McLuhan was right all along.
I think the liberal media is partially to blame for this. There bias was so obvious that Fox was revenge. Fox is the most popular channel so they must be doing something right.
If the mainstream media had tried to bring more conservative writers in, not just a "token" here and there, people would not have lost so much faith in the press.
We need a return to true, unbiased news. I really don't see it anywhere in the mainstream press, at the moment. Everyone seems to have a political bias.
I too wish your piece were elevated to the front page, however no celebrity died or some such thing...thanks for bringing your questioning here.
R and friended.
In giving up any kind of filter or gatekeeper we have ---as you put so well--lowered the standards of accuracy and critical thinking,
We've also changed the patterns of communication. With the massive tidal wave of communication roaring up at each of us; it's become perfectly socially acceptable to NOT answer. So dialogue suffers. And when dialogue suffers, we all loose. When 2 way communication is considered as outdated as a "Walkman," it hurts everyone.
A second casualty is commentary. If I responded to your piece with a "rant" about Fox News or how my New York Times delivery was late again; rather than address the substance of your point---that too would be socially acceptable. As long as I was provocative enough.
I'm looking forward to that first lawsuit.
The pendulum has swung too far.
I have more to say but have to run but just one word first, ...
info(?)tainment.
Lezlie
You are absolutely correct about the importance of gatekeepers, and sad to say, present-day "gatekeepers" are too often no more than paid stooges for propaganda machines. See Fux News for details.
We can already see the consequences of the dumbing-down and the shining-up, and the 2010 mid-terms were worse than the triumph of mediocrity -- they were the triumph of idiocy.
What passes for information on Facebook is what used to -- and still does -- pass for information over the back-fence: Gossip.
I have wondered what happened to the rule I was taught in J school that "Tale bearers are as guilty as tale tellers" meaning if you reprint libelous information, you are just as guilty as the originator of the falsehood.
And, many folks are uninformed about what libel actually is, printing a lie, and knowing it was lie when you printed it. Victims must prove it is untrue, and in the case of a public figure, must also prove the media knew the information was untrue. A private citizen only needs to prove the information was false.
We need the feedback of media lawyers here, because social media has so changed the landscape of reporting, that libel laws need to be updated. As you note in your post, that will most likely occur as a result of a successful libel suit against a major social media site (and FB and Twitter are most likely to be the first test case).
Social media ultimately complicates the situation. Given one's personal affinities, it's easy to get sucked into one or two information sources depending on one's ideological bias to begin with. Social media and the internet aggravates bias and ignorance by easily channeling you into more and more web pages that reinforce your biases instead of exposing them to a variety of opinions that might challenge your assumptions.
My son in law is a classic case in point. I just terminated a flame war with him. He began by claiming that the Buffett rule would only add an additional $4B towards fighting the federal deficit. Supposedly because of this, he saw no reason why the government should impose a 30% income tax on people making over $1 million a year.
Intuitively, this $4B figure didn't seem right to me. A surface skimming of the net showed that F*x News and various GOP affiliated websites parroted his line verbatim. Even an article in the Washington Post parroted this line (shame on them!). Only when I'd done extensive research, did I find that the $4B figure was only if the Bush tax cuts expired, and that if the Bush cuts were left in place, the Buffett rule would actually generate $100B+.
My son in law threw back at me more bogus information to back his claims. He cited usgovernmentspending.com, a right wing website that has a faux US government look to it. A quick check on my son in law's "facts" showed that this website was 100% wrong.
His exchanges with me became increasingly nasty, as he could cite website after website that he depended on for his world view. Unfortunately, I concluded in this case that it was a pure case of "garbage in, garbage out."
With almost everyone in the position of not having 30+ potential news sources to fact check each other, it's easy for people to fall into whatever ideological blinders that they want to wallow in.
In an age where someone could supposedly cite a website with the headline of I WAS ELVIS' SPACE ALIEN BABY as a fact, is there any wonder why the American republic has fallen so low?
It is indeed both. Social media has so often cried wolf regarding "breaking news" that it is hardly the appropriate place to primarily report news. I've seen so many posts on Facebook alone where I have had to correct an acquaintance by pointing out the obvious: their post was not research, and if it had been they would have easily discovered it was a hoax or that they were simply misinformed.
And therein lies much of the problem - social media posters are not required to research their content, nor are they required to provide supporting evidence. All they need is an opinion and a place to put it.
Well done, Del, and I sincerely hope that some day we can return to the cutting-edge journalism that was so important to this country in the 60's and the 70's.
Rated.