We don't have perfect choices. Imperfect journalism with limited access or access to the chatter. There is bad journalism too. People tend to be less on guard themselves when presented with bad or biased journalism. At least with twitter, people are less inclined to take everything at face value.
Anyway, I am confident. Earlier on people were making ridiculous arguments about how the internet is an untrustworthy source of information. All sorts of things that were highly speculative or untrue where being put online. Douglas Adams compare this to saying you can't believe everything you here on the telephone. I think this applies here too.
Twitter is new. People don't know how to treat it properly yet. The information you hear on a bus can be unreliable. It shouldn't be treated as a perfect sample. It may contain the opinions of crazy people, biased people & bus drivers. But it's still information. People are good at sifting through this kind of information.
Indeed. I'm reminded of Fisk's reports from Baghdad during Gulf War II, which in retrospect turned out to have been mostly made up (e.g. he reported fighting at Baghdad Airport that simply didn't happen, as embedded journalists who were actually on the scene pointed out).
But as he was saying what his fans wanted to hear (i.e. that lots of US soldiers were getting killed) his career blossomed nonetheless.
Anyway, I am confident. Earlier on people were making ridiculous arguments about how the internet is an untrustworthy source of information. All sorts of things that were highly speculative or untrue where being put online. Douglas Adams compare this to saying you can't believe everything you here on the telephone. I think this applies here too.
Twitter is new. People don't know how to treat it properly yet. The information you hear on a bus can be unreliable. It shouldn't be treated as a perfect sample. It may contain the opinions of crazy people, biased people & bus drivers. But it's still information. People are good at sifting through this kind of information.