Like Steve Jobs having a heart attack would be broken by iReport
Dear reporters,
Say you went to a website and the top item there was an all-caps rant proclaiming HENRY BLODGET IS A SKANK. Would that suggest credibility?
So stop pretending that CNN's user-sourced iReport is a news source, or, now that you've been had by it, that it's evidence that non-professional journalism is no good.
It's just a glorified microblogging system. It's Twitter with a news hat. If you fell for it, it's because you're as clueless as stock traders who believe everything they read on the internet.
Legitimacy doesn't come from corporate branding. It comes from transparency, accurate sourcing and accountability in reportage.
When people complain that its easy to become a "citizen journalist" at iReport, they're just proving the point that it has no more claim to legitimacy than any other collection of anonymous, unsourced blog postings. Calling it a failure of open systems just means you don't know the difference between random internet rubbish and organized collaboration under open terms.
What, are you going to warn us about the failure of open citizen journalism at 4chan, next? Please. Your inappropriate presentation of rumors is no-one's fault but your own.
More on the fallout is at Silicon Valley Insider and CNET.
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Thank you for saying this! Someone had to. What are the chances they will listen?
Again, I refer to the "But the if internets said it, it must be true" argument.
This has all the marks of ebaumsworld.com prank.
I believe this post deserves an "Oh snap."
iReport is the YouTube of citizen journalism... at least the quality of what is posted there is akin to YouTuber's comments.
How the hell anyone mistook this as news, or thought it'd be sound to run with it is beyond me.
See also NowPublic, which has much the same problem. As far as I know, pretty much anybody can post pretty much anything there, and all the other users can do to control the dissemination of nonsense is not vote it up - which means nonsense that's "common knowledge" gets voted up all the time.
I think there's something to be said for these sorts of sites, but I'm not sure how much value they offer over plain old free blogs, to someone who wants to get a story out. If the only real difference turns out to be the greater credibility of (what looks like) a big-brand news site, when that credibility is not justified by proper fact checking, then these sites are clearly actually a net deduction from the sum of human knowledge.
Now, it's not as if Wikinews magically solves this problem, but at least it puts a damper on blatant barrow-pushing.
Which reporters, specifically, were "pretending that CNN's user-sourced iReport is a news source"? That isn't a rhetorical question.
Seems like this was a product of the "publish/opine first, verify later" online blabocracy that latched on to a clearly suspicious iReport thing and went twittering/digging with loopy abandon. But did I miss something? (Again, not a rhetorical q.)
If by "reporters" you mean "Blodgett," then whooops! He's an interesting individual due to his tainted professional Wall Street background, surely you don't classify him as a reporter ... uh .... do you? Even if your intention is to spank him and him alone, the original SIA post had all the caveats that should have warned anyone who actually read it that is was repeating unconfirmed rumor. Buyer beware is true when buying a pig in a poke and when consuming information.
@#3 KZM
It was 4chan on the random board I believe. They've been talking about it for around a week.
One mechanism that I think might be interesting is somehow rewarding activity that amounts to fact-checking, sourcing, or otherwise determining the quality of news.
But anonymity/accountability is the first problem. Fixing that, though, would kill participation and traffic. Thinking about that rather makes the idea that these places are about "news" seem absurd.
We certainly do play tricks on ourselves when we imagine that they might be credible sources without independent confirmation.
@7. I don't really want to get at anyone in particular. I'm making fun of Blodget here because of his self-exculpatory follow-up, and because someone said he claimed that CNN's branding lent credibility to iReport, which is hysterical.
Publishing something as rumor, and openly tagged as rumor, is great. But there's a judgement call involved: is propagating any given rumor irresponsible, given the context lent it by our own editorial tone and our readers' expectations?
Valleywag or TUAW might have gotten away with this, because they know how to couch this sort of likely bullshit so people can see it for what it almost certainly is. But even then, sheesh: Steve Jobs heart attack rumors? I'd have a pageful of excuses ready, too.