Pilfering Twitter user updates may soon replace speaking with the man on the street, if some journalists have their way. Twittering may be the hot new social networking trend all the cool kids are doing nowadays but it’s also proving to be an excellent information mine for lazy journalists in an age where traditional media struggles to keep up with the rise of online citizen journalism.
Obama - can he save the world?
Inauguration coverage had been fairly interesting this time round. Obama has been painted as president and saviour of the world by a number of news outlets.
I know America is a powerful country, but does the media really need to remind them of this fact? And while we were busy celebrating the new king of everything, what exactly were our own politicians getting up to? You know, the people we actually elected to run the place…
Whether it is the latest celebrity gossip, candid shots or getting pictures of the latest car crash victim, journalists in newsrooms around the world are now scouring social networking sites for their stories. But questions are being raised about whether the increasingly standard practice of Facebook journalism is an ethical one.
Facebook places the responsibility for privacy firmly on their users by allowing users to determine who can see what information they list on their profile. Facebook’s privacy policy warns users to be aware of what information they post on Facebook as “this information may become publicly available”.
While most of the general public may rely on their relative privacy through obscurity, if they’re thrust into the public spotlight that information is there for the journalists’ taking.
