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Journalism of Courage
What the Nikki Haley episode tells journalists
Where a tweet ends,news does not necessarily begin. If the media needed a homily in the frenzied 2012 US presidential election,this would be it. Here is another: a blog,even if it grandiosely calls itself Palmetto Public Record,is at best a private account,unguided by the rules and rigour of journalism. A blogpost about South Carolina Governor Nikki Haley that two legal experts have said that the US Department of Justice may issue an indictment against her on charges of tax fraud as early as this week got tweeted and retweeted in a matter of minutes,picked up by The Washington Post as well as The Huffington Post,among others. That the little retweet icon was right there might have been helpful; in the eagerness to break news it took a while for the essential journalistic instinct to verify the news to kick in. And when it did,the blogpost was revealed to be fake.
The microblogging site that rules with 140 characters is often a great source of information,a compiler of necessary and needless oneliners,a means to send a reactionary message like during the controversial election in Iran in 2009,a platform to mobilise a crowd,a board for real-time updates during natural disasters. But then with Twitters initiation into the US presidential polls,with even Joe Biden having inaugurated an account,the perils of a frantic,feverish RT have also been flagged.
