PETER SHANKMAN
| POSTED ON January 13th, 2010 | 17 COMMENTS | + ADD YOUR COMMENT |
Today, there was a small evacuation at Grand Central Station in New York City. It was so small, in fact, that the media didn’t even pick up on it.
However, all over Twitter, within minutes, the rumor mill had fueled stories of “Explosions!” “People dead!” and other mass hysteria.
Except, none of it was true. There was a stray package. It was proven to be nothing, life went on as normal. In New York, we call that “10am.”
So, as a former journalist (stringer for AP and Editor at AOL News) may I offer these tips on how use Twitter to report breaking or unfolding news or events.
Report what you know – And only what you know to be true. I had a journalism professor who said that a lot. Nothing is stronger than the truth – The truth that you know. If you see a car blow a tire outside your office, it doesn’t become “MASSIVE PILEUP ON MAPLE STREET, MANY CHILDREN DEAD.” A car blew a tire.
Try and verify with links. Even though mainstream media is ridiculously slow with links (see Michael Jackson story for reference) chances are, unless you’re there watching a plane crash into the side of a mountain, someone else has already tweeted it, and hopefully, someone has a photo. Do a quick scan of CNN, Google News, and even Twitter itself before you retweet something without any confirmation. If it comes out later that your plane striking a mountain was a cat climbing a tree, it’ll be hard to take you seriously again.
If people you trust are retweeting other things people they trust are saying, that lends a level of credibility to their tweet. If I hear something from someone I follow, I’ll still try to confirm with links, but if I trust them, I might be more apt to retweet immediately.
The Ferris Bueller report is NOT ok. In other words, “My best friend’s sister’s boyfriend’s brother’s girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who saw an explosion in Times Square on a shaky phone video” is not accurate, trusted information.
Do NOT editorialize. Again, say what you know. “CNN REPORTING SEVERAL DEATHS WHEN TRUCK BOMB GOES OFF IN LAOS: LINK AT http://cnn.com/laos” is better than “HORRIBLE EXPLOSION IN LAOS, MANY DEAD, TERRIBLE TRAGEDY.” They both tell the same story, but tweet one is much more helpful.
If it’s a big story, look to see if there’s a Hashtag. If you can’t find one, create one, and try to be logical about it. “#NYCEXPLOSION” is a lot better than #BOMB.”
Scour the media and try and add interesting and NEEDED content. Retweeting essentially the same thing over and over does no one any good. Tweet what you know to be factually accurate, and help people find places to get other information. If you happen to have access to a blog, perhaps you can start putting together a feed on the issue that will automatically update via RSS. Tweet out that information so people can utilize it.
Twitter is truly changing the way information is received in breaking news situations. But – It’s up to ALL OF US to make sure we use it to the best of our ability – otherwise it becomes yet another causality in a long line of “too much noise, nowhere near enough signal” deaths.
Any futher ideas that I might have missed? Please leave them in the comments. Thanks!
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If you’re calling it breaking news, how about only tweeting actual news. Just a thought. |
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Thank you, Peter Shankman, not only is your piece well-written and necessary, it also makes the post I’ve spent the afternoon writing redundant. You said it better, sir, I shall reference yours. Cheers. |
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Great post. You’d think everybody would know this but all of us often sometimes forget about the power of information and how it could mislead the masses. |
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Haha! Well said, Peter. Especially the “10am” part. Love this city… most of the time. |
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great points peter. i will share this very important article. |
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I don’t see Twitter ever outgrowing this sort of thing. But it certainly can’t hurt to get this info out there. Hopefully they’ll listen. |
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Well done. As a side note, Grand Central Station is a US Post Office. Grand Central Terminal is where one may catch a train. |
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Hi Peter,i agree all with you, very nicely written and so true. I have been member of Twitter since begin of last september, not so long time, but i have noticed the meaning of tweetin and how i use my tweets and using my tweets is developing all the time. Of course i have trying to share accurate information with my tweets and i have retweeting important info which i have had from my followers and keep on doing it. |
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Well done my friend! I never believe anything on twitter first hand, mostly cos I’m slightly cyncial. p.s. I’ve learned much from you over the years that I’ve been able to apply to my life, and work etc. Outstanding PR stunts and common sense that stand above the rest and stand the test of time, have keep me in good graces (and remembered) with networking contacts for future endeavours. Much Love Peter! xo |
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This is why “mainstream” media continues to hold credibility with me. They can’t exactly start reporting horrible falsehoods (though some would argue they have) or they lose advertisers and serious dough. The news is their biz, whereas a random tweeter — well for the most part, we’re all having fun and benefiting from twitter but not as newsmakers. I know with social media we all make the news, but we all also tend to freak out too. |
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I think the best point of this post is to not editorialize. If one person add incorrect information and then another person and so on, before you know it you have a story gotten completely blown out of proportion with incorrect information. |
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Just arrived here from @Twitter_Tips. Great article! “Report what you know – And only what you know to be true” is a very good saying to remember. As Natalie pointed out, we all make the news now, however only a few learned how to do it right. Thank you for enlightening us. |
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Thougtless retweeting can in fact cause some real harm. We have already seen instances when spammers fooled Twitter users to retweet links in order to get Google Wave invites, but in fact the links were to adult sites. If a story is juicy enough or the “prize” is desirable enough, many will retweet anything without checking it out first. |
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