There's been a lot written since the horrific events of last weekend about what the media should or shouldn't have done in trying to cover the shootings at the Sandy Hook elementary school -- and in particular, about the numerous errors that were published and re-published about almost every element of the incident. But only Michael Wolff, a media gadfly and blogger for…
Aggressive public information is an absolute, but there is a growing amount of research that points to how information often gets self-corrected. The problem is for it to be self-corrected, the “correct” information still needs to be tweeted from people on the ground and/or from official/trusted sources. And if you are a celebrity or have a large followership, you have a duty to help confirm the information before sending it out. Personally, while I would listen to many of the things being said (which would still help inform action to some degree), I would still try to find out the root of the information to confirm authenticity/believability. But I am probably not representative of the many who would take a Tweet at face value rather than investigate further. Tweeting and retweeting is just so easy sometimes. It is a tradeoff though because when we give up in the ability to filter, we also gain the ability to communicate faster and better with our constituents. There is a fallacy that crowdsourced information equals good information. This is not true; research is still examining how to pull the “right” information from the crowd. As with any situation, information must always be met with a level of skepticism, no matter how you receive it.
Very true. And once information is out, it’s very difficult to pull it back. Even issuing a retraction in the ‘heat of battle’ is likely not a priority.
These are valid points to a very delicate discussion that I think will be going on for quite sometimes. I was reading this interesting post about a very simple and usually effective way to “correct ” information once they are out.
http://irevolution.net/2013/01/27/mythbuster-tweets/
Brandon – I actually had a discussion yesterday with a colleague about the handling of public information on this incident. I’m not one to Monday morning quarter back someone else’s incident – every incident is unique and deals with factors we aren’t aware of and Sandy Hook is certainly an incident I would not want to be involved in. We can, however, learn from what we know. The folks who managed (and continue to manage) this incident have been faced with many challenges, public information is certainly one of them. There were a vast number of rumors and false bits of information circulating throughout the media within hours and even days of the incident. National, and even international media are absolutely a challenge to corral, especially when there is a need to correct false information. The best way to address this is to be very aggressive with public information and to be certainly to have a plan for it.