There have been several accounts over the last week about the Fort Hood killings. Most of the initial ones were wrong.
As what happened came to light, the differences in the first stories and what is believed to have happened are startling.
1) The man who shot the soldiers wasn't dead as originally reported for hours after the event.
2) The woman believed to have "brought the killer down" didn't.
3) The condition of the wounds of those in hospital were stable - not so as some have yet to be upgraded to stable
4) Major Hassan was distraught about being shipped overseas and there was no planning to this act - it was later reported he had moved out of his apartment several days prior and had ordered "special" business cards with his rank removed
5) There was more than one shooter - not correct - there was one shooter
If I made this many errors in my job I wouldn't have one. The standard that used to be upheld for journalism is more than fraying at the edges as social networking is being given credibility and being mistaken for "at the scene" reporting.
While it was difficult to get information from a base that was on lock down, random speculation did not serve the public good.
If journalism is to go back to being a "trusted source" it would behoove us separate news reporters from random commentators and to make that distinction clear.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1410/fort-hood-the-online-conversation
NB C-notes
14 years ago
2 comments:
I totally agree, Caroline. There have been so many 'facts' that have turned out to be untrue. Speculation at its worst here.
Caroline, you make a good point. Twitter contributors should not be considered sources, EVER! What is their real identity? Do we ever know for real? It is absolutely laughable that a journalist would quote from a "twit"
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