Blog 4: Social Media Research

Watch the video and respond. How is journalistic research different today than it was 15 years ago? What are specific pros and cons of using social media for research? What do you notice about the importance of research before publication? Consider who is impacted when/if a journalist’s facts are wrong or incomplete. What will YOU do to ensure accuracy in the article that you are writing?

Journalistic research is much different today than it was 15 years ago. Even if you look back to thirty years ago when the movie "All the President's Men" was made, you can see the major differences. The only way those man had to communicate was by calling every person they could reach just to get a small statement. 15 years ago there was cell phones and email which were two much easier forms of communication but even still, today videos, tags, pictures, and locations can all be shared instantly. It's easy to type in a place where something occurred to find out everything a person can figure out almost as if they were standing there themselves. It's important to do research before publication because you want to check the authenticity of the story. Fake news can't be going around along with real news. If a journalist is wrong, depending on what publication they write for, a majority of our country would be impacted. For instance, if Fox news didn't fact check, many people would be receiving false information eventually making it the "truth" because so many people would start to believe it. To ensure accuracy I will ask secondary sources for their opinions on the person I am interviewing and also the facts they will give me. I can also look at previous pictures or newspaper articles on the person I am interviewing for more fact checking.