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Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsTwitter PRANKSTER Reveals CNN As A Journalistic JOKE And Lands Himself In Hot Water

For about a third of the country, Hurricane Sandy will live forever as one of the biggest and most destructive storms to ever hit the US, at least up until this point. History will also remember Sandy as the storm that hit the hub of both media and commerce. During the storm, information was flying faster than Grandmas hat. Its understandable that there would be confusion, but when so-called legitimate news sources, like CNN, present a single Tweet as news, it demonstrates a problem that is far larger than the storm. It demonstrates that we have a very lazy media.


It all began when Twitter user, @ComfortablySmug posted this Tweet.

The National Weather Service, The Weather Channel and CNN all picked up the Tweet and ran with it. The problem was it wasnt true. Any first year journalism student would be shocked that a news network like CNN would use an anonymous, unverified source. Any 11-year-old knows that the Twitterverse does have some useful information but its also full of people who simply make s#&* up. The day of the storm was certainly a media circus, but one would think that it would be relatively easy to find at least one source who could verify the story, preferably with pics.



cont'
http://www.addictinginfo.org/2012/11/01/twitter-prankster-reveals-cnn-as-a-journalistic-joke-and-lands-himself-in-hot-water/
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brooklynite
(96,882 posts)MADem
(135,425 posts)ProudProgressiveNow
(6,165 posts)Dark n Stormy Knight
(10,137 posts)Spazito
(55,059 posts)Unlike CNN, CNBC actually contacted the NYSE to see if this was true instead of breathlessly reporting it as true as CNN did.
"New York City Councilman Peter Vallone says he's asked the Manhattan district attorney's office to look into charges against Tripathi."
Here's the link with the tweets, etc, it makes for interesting reading, imo:
Should spreading false info in a crisis be a crime?
http://www.cbc.ca/news/yourcommunity/2012/10/should-spreading-false-info-in-a-crisis-be-a-crime.html

0rganism
(24,858 posts)if the courts respect precedent, then there's absolutely no obligation for anyone to be truthful via mass media.
renate
(13,776 posts)In fact, Twitter isn't supposed to act as a genuine news source (although, sure, sometimes it does). Fox News has "News" right in the title and somehow it's perfectly okay that they make stuff up or neglect to dispute made-up stuff.
I can see how moronic tweets might get off as "free speech" (although the fire-in-a-movie-theater analogy might make me wrong) but I think you're absolutely right that if Fox News can fail to exude anything that resembles news, there probably isn't any obligation for anyone to expect the truth from anyone, anywhere, under any circumstances.
freshwest
(53,661 posts)Dark n Stormy Knight
(10,137 posts)could be sent to prison.
I'm beginning to agree with you.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)It's hilarious that, considering how many lies we were told by the media re the War in Iraq by the entire US Media, that anyone is even suggesting charging some prankster with a crime, when the Media once again fails to check its sources.
Dark n Stormy Knight
(10,137 posts)a civil case.
By the way, I've read that it was not just Fox that put forth that craven argument, but that other "news" organizations were a party to it. Know anything about that?
GOTV
(3,759 posts)freshwest
(53,661 posts)So most likely some of these tweets inspired those calls. I heard the dispatcher saying to units that they'd already checked them out, don't go. and others they needed to be sent to, such as people stuck in basement apartments that were flooding.
That's what I mean here, I didn't suggest they were spending their time on tweets. They had to handle all kinds of calls all night. Now we see the wingnuts trying to paint this as Obama's Katrina, and make the NYPD and FDNY public workers look incompetent.
This guy was a GOP operattive working on a repuke campaign. Then CNN picked up his stories. It's not right to yell fire in an area that is a tinder box. More GOP dirty tricks, against Obama and union public workers.
hootinholler
(26,449 posts)Dark n Stormy Knight
(10,137 posts)Spazito
(55,059 posts)he has been 'uncloaked' and had to resign his position with the repub candidate. Seems like a fair resolution to this, imo.
Dark n Stormy Knight
(10,137 posts)random, unaffiliated guy.
sabrina 1
(62,325 posts)journalist? If it were, the NYT, the WAPO et al would all have been charged with crimes for spreading the lie that Iraq had WMDs and that they were responsible for 9/11. Those lies led to hundreds of thousands of deaths.
It is LUDICROUS to blame someone who posts on Twitter for the failure of the so-called Professional Media.
And someone should remind them that a court has already ruled that Fox 'News' has the right to LIE.
The ONLY reason why this is even causing a whimper is because it has to do with MONEY.
It is shameful for anyone to even contemplate charging someone like this with a crime. It would be comical if it wasn't so sad.
Spazito
(55,059 posts)and I agree with you, the media used to hold itself to a higher standard than simply regurgitating rumors as truth. Sadly those times are long gone.
LisaL
(46,988 posts)naaman fletcher
(7,362 posts)Sure the guy is a douche, but on any given night there are, what, millions of douchebags posting BS on the internet?
The issue here is that the frigging news treated him as a source.
Luminous Animal
(27,310 posts)from a Supreme Court decision justifying throwing an anti-war, anti-draft protester in jail for 10 years.
Three Generations of a Hackneyed Apologia for Censorship Are Enough
http://www.popehat.com/2012/09/19/three-generations-of-a-hackneyed-apologia-for-censorship-are-enough/
We admit that, in many places and in ordinary times, the defendants, in saying all that was said in the circular, would have been within their constitutional rights. But the character of every act depends upon the circumstances in which it is done. Aikens v. Wisconsin, 195 U.S. 194, 205, 206. The most stringent protection of free speech would not protect a man in falsely shouting fire in a theatre and causing a panic. It does not even protect a man from an injunction against uttering words that may have all the effect of force. Gompers v. Bucks Stove & Range Co., 221 U.S. 418, 439. The question in every case is whether the words used are used in such circumstances and are of such a nature as to create a clear and present danger that they will bring about the substantive evils that Congress has a right to prevent. It is a question of proximity and degree. When a nation is at war, many things that might be said in time of peace are such a hindrance to its effort that their utterance will not be endured so long as men fight, and that no Court could regard them as protected by any constitutional right. It seems to be admitted that, if an actual obstruction of the recruiting service were proved, liability for words that produced that effect might be enforced. The statute of 1917, in § 4, punishes conspiracies to obstruct, as well as actual obstruction. If the act (speaking, or circulating a paper), its tendency, and the intent with which it is done are the same, we perceive no ground for saying that success alone warrants making the act a crime.
And the man whose opinion who promote to tsk tsk a prank also approved of forcible sterilization under a governmental eugenics policy:
We have seen more than once that the public welfare may call upon the best citizens for their lives. It would be strange if it could not call upon those who already sap the strength of the State for these lesser sacrifices, often not felt to be such by those concerned, in order to prevent our being swamped with incompetence. It is better for all the world if, instead of waiting to execute degenerate offspring for crime or to let them starve for their imbecility, society can prevent those who are manifestly unfit from continuing their kind. The principle that sustains compulsory vaccination is broad enough to cover cutting the Fallopian tubes. Three generations of imbeciles are enough.
LiberalAndProud
(12,799 posts)I am weary of our manufactured realities. Our news agencies should be ashamed. Oh wait, I forgot -- doesn't have to be true to be news.
Zalatix
(8,994 posts)Tweeting that the NYSE is flooded causes exactly what kind of panic?
Marmitist
(64 posts)And what greater crime could there be than making rich assholes worry that they might lose some barely perceptible fraction of their ill-gotten wealth?
Oilwellian
(12,647 posts)rDigital
(2,239 posts)Segami
(14,923 posts)Jeff In Milwaukee
(13,992 posts)Making false statements on Twitter is a Dick Move, to be sure. But at the same time, nobody put a gun to the head of CNN and demanded that they report it as news. Making a false statement on Twitter is not -- I repeat NOT -- the same as making a false statement to a police officer or some government official.
JI7
(91,279 posts)Kennah
(14,465 posts)AZ Progressive
(3,411 posts)People say all sorts of inaccurate things all the time. If CNN was a real news media organization with journalistic standards, it would have never run with a mere tweet without even checking if it was true. All the shame and blame should be on CNN. What this guy did wasn't much different from all the inaccurate reports that happen during many breaking news events (one of the most famous being that Gabbie Giffords died back in the January 2011 shooting.)
GeorgeGist
(25,477 posts)amborin
(16,631 posts)JI7
(91,279 posts)a dem needs to do the same thing so they could report it and say both sides do it.
KharmaTrain
(31,706 posts)Here's a golden oldie:

durablend
(8,196 posts)We already knew that, so how is that news?
stuntcat
(12,022 posts)Does that sound dramatic? Because it's the truth.
It's sad that it's played in all the airports so travelers can see the pop drivel we take for serious.