Facebook, Twitter and Google, just put down those potential news stories and do what you do best: Get of the way and let professionals take the wheel -- and/or oversight. In-house journalists, news
producers and editors are not your forte.
Twitter made the honorable decision last week to stop the
spread of iffy information by broadcasting local TV news programs about the tragedy at the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School in Parkland, Florida.
A Twitter executive said
last week: “We're continuing to work on new ways we can surface credible [emphasis added] content and relevant information to help people stay informed.”
For many, this
may sound like big digital media is giving up. But it is also a recognition of what it can’t do: serious news journalism.
For big digital media players, this will help appease
queasy TV advertisers when it comes to their iffy brand safety performance.
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Of course, this doesn’t solve all problems. All kinds of content -- pseudo-program/editorial content, fake-ish
advertising content -- will still appear on these platforms.
Social-media posts attached to these live broadcasts will continue to elicit some inappropriate, manipulated responses. Many
experts say there is no way to keep all dubious information from consumers.
Opinions? Commentary? All that highly charged stuff on cable TV? It should be clearly labelled -- as best as it can
-- so advertisers and consumers know what they are watching.
Local TV news programs promote the value of local TV. Twitter just realized it is more credible than anything else out there.
Digital media platforms don’t just need to hire “humans” to weed out bad content from the good, as they have previously announced. They need to hire retired reporters, journalism
professors and other media pros to identify it.
This story -- like many news stories -- never really ends.