The Mash
Whew! While some great reporting came out of the tragedy of the Boston bombings last month, the media as a whole likely will be remembered for botching many of the facts, including the identities of the suspects, in a desperate effort to break the news.
We had hoped that the newspapers, TV stations and wire services would recover from that less-than-awesome performance, and while some did, others, well, did not.
Here’s a look at two instances where corrections were needed.
Stock market scariness
News source: Twitter
Background: It’s no secret that world affairs affect the stock market and global economy. So when the Associated Press’ top Twitter account-—followed by nearly 2 million people—reported in April that two explosions went off in the White House and President Obama was injured, the stock market immediately reacted. Some traders use software that monitors news and social media sites to automatically buy and sell assets according to big news, and the AP’s tweet almost instantly erased $200 billion of value from U.S. stock markets and sent the Dow Jones down about 145 points. Except the news wasn’t true. The AP’s Twitter account had been hacked by a Syrian activist group, and even though the company corrected the information within minutes and the markets corrected themselves, the traders were shaken up and the AP’s reputation was left a bit tarnished.
Lesson: The big news companies might want to implement better anti-hacking measures, or at least change their social media passwords often and tell them to the bare minimum of employees. The stock market may want to rethink the algorithms of their electronic trading software.
News or noise? Noise that turned out to make news.
Small world parking lot
News source: TV
Background: As is common practice when showing an interview between people far away, CNN reporters Ashleigh Banfield and Nancy Grace spoke to each other via a split screen during a May 7 news broadcast. But wait—was that the same white bus with pink and aqua trim going by both women? Yes, yes, it was. Apparently, Banfield and Grace were reporting from the same Phoenix parking lot, mere feet away from each other, but CNN producers thought it seemed more impressive to pretend that the station had reporters all over town. #fail
Lesson: Don’t try to cheat your viewers. That’s a way to quickly lose their trust.
News or noise? Noise.
The post NEWS VS. NOISE: Markets crash, AP burned appeared first on Why News Matters.
