The Dark Side of Citizen Journalism

I never hesitate for the opportunity to talk about my disdain for twitter. Personally, I feel like it feeds the growing narcissism of our culture. Despite my hatred, I will concede that there is one time when I almost always turn to twitter: breaking news.
Last month I took the ferry to Liberty Island. After exhausting the entertainment options on Liberty Island (Statue of Liberty and Bathrooms) my wife, her parents and I decided to join the line for the ferry to Ellis Island. While approaching the line something very peculiar happened, 5 police offers with machine guns ran out of a building and jumped on a boat. There was a strange sense of urgency that made everyone aware of the fact that something was up. Personal on the scene were tight-lipped. I immediately began searching twitter for keywords like ‘Ellis Island’, ‘Liberty Island’, ‘New York Ferry’. Having hitting refresh several times I was rewarded with a tweet “Ellis Island on Lockdown,  White Powder Discovered”. In this moment I celebrated citizen journalism because I knew what was going on when hundreds of people around me had no idea.

The problem with citizen journalism is that it can’t be trusted. Who’s to say that the person posting on twitter has any idea of what they’re actually talking about? Professional journalist have a certain level of accountability which keeps them in check. This accountability typically happens before a story reaches the world. The dark side of citizen journalism is that its accountability doesn’t happen until after the information has already been reported. I was reminded of this today with the death of Chris Henry. An elaborate twitter hoax reported Chris Henry’s death 12 hours before it happened. In a similar fashion to the Wikipedia hoax incident with the death of Chris Benoit’s wife, an internet troll took a bit of public information and used it to report a fabricated, and twisted, conclusion. In both situations, that conclusion ended up being the truth.

The real question is, how do we enjoy the benefits of these ever-growing networks of citizen journalists while avoiding the dark side of its users? Is this dark side unavoidable? Should we just take any report from these networks with a grain of salt?