The News and it’s Friend Social Media.

OJ1#3


Here’s the scenario: You’re a full-time, busy journalist, working in a competitive and hurried online news room. You’re writing a news story on a local teenager who has been killed in a car accident. You need some more information for the story and a photo of the teenager but you’re running out of time and have so much to do. You log on to Facebook and search for the teenager. Profile, found. You see his display picture. He’s only 17 but is holding a can of bourbon and smiling cheekily. That look’s alright, you think. You don’t take into consideration that alcohol may be a cause of the accident and that by using this picture you are placing an emphasis on the deceased youths underage drinking, which may mislead some readers.

You want a comment from his friends, you don’t have time to go out and speak to them directly. Not to mention, they may not want to speak to you. You find a public memorial site, recently created for friends to pay their respects to the deceased. You find some good quotes….friends write, “ Brendan you were such a good mate, always there for everyone. Miss you forever man.” and “Brendy, I just can’t believe it. We are supposed to be going to Thailand together in a few months. This just can’t be real. “. You pop them into your story. Your piece is finished. Job done. You move onto your next story.

What the journalist doesn’t know is that the parents of the dead 17-year-old are devastated a photo of their son drinking alcohol as appeared on the front page of the local paper. They are upset people will think badly of him; think that alcohol caused the crash when it was a faulty traffic light. They wanted to use a photo of him at his year 12 formal. The same one they’ve picked out for his funeral. The boys friends, quoted in the story are upset no one asked their permission. They are grieving and angry the person who wrote the story didn’t ask them for a proper comment. They would have loved to talk about their friend Brendan.

This story is completely made up, but based on situations that occur around the world in busy news rooms every day. Not every journalist has acted this way, but those who do MUST put more thought into their use of social media. They must never forget no matter how busy they are, or how tight their deadline is, they are writing about a human being.

*The author of this blog has chosen not to include screen shots of a deceased persons Facebook tribute page as she considers it inappropriate.

INFORMATION FOR JOURNALISTS. Read more here about journalists using Facebook to find sources: http://journalism.about.com/od/trends/a/facebook.htm