Check before you RT

What the Nikki Haley episode tells journalists

What the Nikki Haley episode tells journalists

Where a tweet ends,news does not necessarily begin. If the media needed a homily in the frenzied 2012 US presidential election,this would be it. Here is another: a blog,even if it grandiosely calls itself Palmetto Public Record,is at best a private account,unguided by the rules and rigour of journalism. A blogpost about South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley that two legal experts have said that the US Department of Justice may issue an indictment against her on charges of tax fraud as early as this week got tweeted and retweeted in a matter of minutes,picked up by The Washington Post as well as The Huffington Post,among others. That the little retweet icon was right there might have been helpful; in the eagerness to break news it took a while for the essential journalistic instinct to verify the news to kick in. And when it did,the blogpost was revealed to be fake.

Bloggers and tweeters chat incessantly at their virtual watercooler. In this constant nattering,this outpouring of news and views across multiple media,what is valuable,as the Haley episode shows,is credibility and this is where Journalism 101 and the good old techniques of verification and filtering come in. If news outlets ride the mob,then these could end up being chomped by it.

The microblogging site that rules with 140 characters is often a great source of information,a compiler of necessary and needless oneliners,a means to send a reactionary message like during the controversial election in Iran in 2009,a platform to mobilise a crowd,a board for real-time updates during natural disasters. But then with Twitters initiation into the US presidential polls,with even Joe Biden having inaugurated an account,the perils of a frantic,feverish RT have also been flagged.