As social media continues to change the way journalists disseminate their news, it also plays an increasingly important role in the way in which newsrooms publish corrections.
Whether a reporter misspells a source’s name, miscaptions a photo or makes an assumption about a specific piece of data, it’s critical for them to provide the public with the correct information in a timely manner once they receive it. This boosts their transparency, which can ultimately help foster a sense of trust between journalists and their audience.
Social Media’s Role
According to Pew Research Center, around 70% of Americans use social media to engage with news content. This calls for the need to apprise the public on corrections via social media platforms, in addition to including them within an online story.
In a digital age, corrections can be made in a more useful and efficient manner, but this also raises the question of what should be done about the many people who have already seen a story with published misinformation.
In her article for the Poynter Institute for Media Studies, Kelly McBride wrote, “Getting corrections right is harder when you are constantly publishing on multiple platforms. The general rule of thumb is to correct errors in the place where the audience is likely to see it.”
Some methods that newsrooms have employed to alert the public on their corrections include:
Posting on the outlet’s social media platforms, either linking back to the previous post or providing the updated information within a comment; and
Monitoring who shares stories on certain social media platforms to notify those individuals through direct messages or within the post’s comments section.
In his article for Nieman Lab, Dan Gillmor explained how the best fact checkers are the audience members, social media allowing for them to be heavily involved in journalism’s gatekeeping process. However, the best people to write convincing corrections are the ones who made the original mistake.
“Still, we need everyone’s help in the end. We’re human, and therefore we make mistakes,” Gillmor wrote. “It’s everyone’s responsibility to correct public errors via the same channels. If we could embed that principle into all of our online activity, we’d all be better off.”
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