Richard Greco suggested in post on Philadelphia sports news site GCobb.com that journalists shouldn’t automatically assume tweets are fact-checked before running with the information in light of some of the media’s inaccurate reporting on the death of Joe Paterno. (See our story on the misreporting here.)
He wrote:
“It is a great place to find the lead to a story, but when using a tweet journalists need to fact check. Twitter is just another source, less reputable because it’s 140 characters and doesn’t require its writer to reveal sources, but none-the-less is just another basis. That means if you’re using the tweet in your story you’d better make sure it is true.”
Greco also called for journalists to fact check all tweets before relying on them for stories.
Read his full post here.