Think before you tweet.

Accurately reporting and writing is essential to good journalism. Unfortunately, there have been cases where journalism isn’t factually accurate. An example of this would be the tweet concerning the death of college football coach Joe Paterno. The problem is, Joe Paterno wasn’t dead yet. The tweet sent off a chain reaction and re-tweets that reported the false information that Joe Paterno had died, and the repercussions of this cost the author of the tweet his job.

This brings up an interesting dilemma that is constantly being debated in journalism, whether it is more important to be first, or to be right. In my opinion, there is nothing more important than correct information. If the information you are releasing to the public isn’t correct then why should you release it in the first place? For example, a story about the shootings in Tulsa Oklahoma appeared on CNN.com the other day with factually incorrect information. It was extremely disappointing to me, as a journalism student because I find CNN.com an extremely reputable news agency that prides them on reporting correct information. Granted, this was not on the scale of the Joe Paterno death but the mentality is still important.

Reputable news agencies should focus more on getting information correct that being first. While timing is very important in journalism, what good is the information? Information, especially information being thrown around on Twitter, needs to be correct. While Twitter was originated not especially for the purpose of broadcasting breaking news, it has turned into one of the most important facets of news today. News agencies heavily rely on Twitter; I think they rely on them too much. Sports agencies are especially fond of Twitter. ESPN is constantly monitoring athlete’s tweets and looking for breaking news in the athletic world. It is not surprising that they covered the Joe Paterno tweet and then had to apologize for using false information.

I look at Twitter, or social media, as an awesome responsibility not only to yourself but also for your audience. Think before you tweet, really think. I understand that the creators of Twitter had the idea of sharing your thoughts with the world, but it’s a responsibility that journalists have to take seriously. So before you tweet, fact check, and make sure you aren’t condescending, because you never know how many followers you actually have.