Being a member of the media I know all too well the rush you get breaking an exclusive news story. With it comes accolades from your peers and it builds you a solid journalistic reputation with your readers.
The opposite can happen when you flub a story. Errors happen daily in newspapers across the world and every reporter who's made one knows the sinking feeling in the pit of your stomach when you open the paper and see the mistake. There in black in white is your screw-up for everyone to see. It sucks.
The Internet has made it even quicker to break an exclusive story. As a journalist you're not constrained by deadlines. As soon as your story is done it can be published by the simple click of a button. Twitter, the online micro-social media site, can make the story go viral in a matter of minutes. Such was the case this week when a Toronto Star reporter Tweeted that former Toronto Maple Leaf's coach Pat Burns had succumbed to his cancer. The only problem with his Tweet was the fact that Burns wasn't dead.
It didn't matter that the Tweet was quickly deleted once the mistake was discovered. By that time it had travelled around the globe and condolences were being posted on Twitter, Facebook and other social media sites. On other news sites it was being reported as fact before anyone had bothered to pick up a phone and confirm the information.
A former colleague of mine used to say "Get it up, then get it right." I never agreed with that method of thinking. I understand the pressures of media competition, especially in Toronto. Having worked in that city for 14 years I know how intense it is to break the news first. But before you Tweet something as a journalist you'd better know for sure it's factual, especially if it involves the death of one of the most popular Toronto Maple Leaf coaches in recent memory.
Many reporters and news organizations can be followed on Twitter and Facebook these days. I follow countless news sites and media colleagues to keep in touch with what's going on in the world. I'm a news junkie so this is what I do. I use Twitter for professional reasons and post to it in a professional manner. If I wasn't in the media I probably wouldn't have much use for the site.
Having said that, news items I post to Twitter are finished and edited. I link all of them to durhamregion.com because I want as many readers as possible to come to my site. If what we're posting to our website turns out to be consistently factually incorrect or not interesting I'd lose my followers and traffic at durhamregion.com would drop like a stone.
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