RT: Twitter Wouldn't Lie to Me!

Russ Choma

My goal with this blog was to talk about the Observer, not my personal pet peeves or uninformed opinions about journalism, but I'm going to venture into Twitter territory today.
 
I'm generally fairly skeptical of its application as a news tool - great for (self-)promoting, and okay for news-gathering. My blog-mate Anna will heartily disagree. Probably via a tweet.
 
The Observer has its own Twitter account, which has recently been picked up as a promotional tool. But, we, in general, should be careful about relying too heavily on it as reliable source for our news-gathering. While it has been helpful during some dramatic, hard-to-cover news events, and we've used it for our reporting, it has also been "helpful" spreading hysterical, un-true rumors during these panicky economic times.
 
For example, yesterday, the rumor that the New Yorker was going to twice-a-month was re-Tweeted all over.
 
This time the rumor was stopped in its tracks, but like on the Internet, the rumor remains archived and ready to rise again, represented as fact.
 
Also, bad for us and for Twitter - it made Jennifer Aniston break up with John Mayer. Allegedly.
 
Cross-posted at Blog/19 and AmericanObserved.