Journalism sometimes means you are not the one to break the story

Journalism sometimes means you are not the one to break the story

Ben Smith on the crowdsourcing photo analysis and media failures of the past few days:

The media’s new and unfamiliar job is to provide a framework for understanding the wild, unvetted, and incredibly intoxicating information that its audience will inevitably see — not to ignore it. A Reddit post seen by millions without context is worse for the story, and the public, and to the mission of reporting than the same post in a helpful and informed context seen by many more. Reporting is no longer a question of whether or not to dignify new and questionable information with attention — it’s about predicting which of it will influence the story, and explaining, debunking, or contextualizing it the best we can. That is, incidentally, what our readers want.

This illustrates the problem, which can suck in even a class act like Jake Tapper:

Hey @fbipressoffice —->i.imgur.com/NFPlOCI.jpg

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) April 18, 2013

Big caveats on that, from reddit via @intelwire …. Cc: @fbipressoffice

— Jake Tapper (@jaketapper) April 18, 2013

@jaketapper there are some redditors speculating that picture you just tweeted may be photoshopped.

— John Nussbaum (@Nussbaum_NLGJA) April 19, 2013

@jaketapper Jake, I enhanced Suspect 1 on left; clearly looks to be Photoshop cut in. Evidence “halo” on brick wall. twitter.com/jeffcdi/status…

— Jeff Stanger (@jeffcdi) April 19, 2013

@jaketapper — @jeremyzillar does a better analysis here: twitpic.com/ckaxv0cc @jenniferpreston

— Jeff Stanger (@jeffcdi) April 19, 2013

I don’t know if the photo is real or not. That’s why we have the FBI.

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