This is interesting. I was up drinking beer with a friend until 5am this morning talking about the very phenomenon of breaking news coming from social media and sites such as Reddit. He pointed to the Boston bombing and Dallas shooter situations as reasons why the press should "just ignore" social media; his entire argument boiled down to 'bad data exists along side good data, therefore throw it all out" I didn't nec…
The claim may not just be that bad data is mixed in with the good. It might rather be that we can't verify sources and facts on social media effectively. In other words, I question the assumption that traditional journalistic methods are effective when examining social media.
To be clear: I haven't formed an opinion on this. Thanks for the thought-provoking question, in any case.