Tom Phillips, an international editor at MSN based in England, started “Is Twitter Wrong?” in August to debunk misinformation coursing through the social sphere. His Tumblr rose to prominence quickly this week as he sorted real photos from … Read more
the media buzz I got last night from the Hurricane Sandy coverage could have kept me up for hours beyond my usual bedtime. Had my electric power been restored by morning, I don’t have to tell you what my first act would have been upon awakening.That "disaster porn" has a byproduct, writes Laura Miller: (more...)
There’s plenty of grist available today for social networking cynics.
This storm proved, again, that Twitter is the place to turn for real-time information and analysis during major news events. Journalists and eyewitnesses were posting developments seconds after they happened. … Read more
BuzzFeed’s John Herrman says events like Hurricane Sandy show that “Twitter Is A Truth Machine”:
Twitter beckons us to join every compressed news cycle, to confront every rumor or falsehood, and to see everything. This is what makes the service so maddening during the meta-obsessed election season, where the stakes are unclear and the consequences abstract. And it’s also what makes is so valuable during fast-moving, decidedly real disasters. Twitter is a fact-processing machine on a grand scale, propagating then destroying rumors at a neck-snapping pace. To dwell on the obnoxiousness of the noise is to miss the result: That we end up with more facts, sooner, with less ambiguity.
Related: CNN, Weather Channel inaccurately report that New York Stock Exchange is under 3 feet of water | Tomb of the Unknowns photographer learns a ‘real big lesson in social media’ | How journalists can avoid getting fooled by fake Hurricane Sandy photos
There’s a simple truth in journalism: big weather brings an onslaught of fake images.
This is already fully on display with Sandy, as evidenced by an old shot taken at the Tomb of the Unknowns that’s circulating today, along … Read more
