Mashable
New York Times social media reporter Jen Preston was smeared with a charge of bias as she reported on President Obama’s use of Twitter in the debt-ceiling debate. Here’s what happened. Obama called on Americans to use Twitter to ask their elected representatives to compromise on an agreement; Preston asked White House staff to clarify what hashtag people should use, and then she retweeted their response. The Daily Caller’s Neil Munro twisted that into “New York Times reporter advises White House media staff.” Munro’s editor later explained that the reporter “was not familiar with Twitter and that might have been the problem here.” Preston also heard from Daily Caller founder Tucker Carlson who, she reports, “said he was going to look into” why the story still says she “suggested that administration officials might create a hashtag.”
Preston criticized other news media that picked up the story:
“What’s worse, is that his misleading story was picked up by Yahoo News, Drudge, Andrew Malcolm at the LA Times, FoxNews and others. Mr. Munro’s uninformed knowledge of Twitter not only questioned my integrity but unleashed a torrent of ugly attacks from right-wing and conservative Twitter users (including socks and operatives) who accused me of all sorts of things.”
Who got it right? Preston did, says The Washington Post’s Erik Wemple.
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