New Media … Do Credentials Still Count?

How do you think the pioneers of journalism would respond to the wave of new media that technology has created? And why is this analysis so important?

In the Web 2.0 world, journalism has become much more loosely defined. Everyday individuals now have the opportunity to report events, issues and trends to a broad audience through the Internet. But how credible are these sources? Better yet, how credible are they compared to standards of traditional journalism?

If the facts weren’t necessarily the facts before, how accurate are they now? How will the coverage of your candidates and issues be reported when there are several sources contributing to that coverage that don’t actually investigate what they’re reporting.

Technology and its rapid distribution have left limited time for fact checking particularly when a stream of tweets can spread like wildfire. Take the news of the shooting of Representative Giffords. Several online sources were quick to announce her death while the broadcast news reported her true status, which was “alive and in critical condition”…. contrary to the deafening buzz on the web.

There’s even a new documentary, “Page One: A Year Inside the New York Times” that focuses on the influence of social networking and news aggregator sites on traditional journalism.

We’ve been building up a blog series this past few weeks to emphasize the significance of traditional media while also highlighting the benefits of embracing new technologies particularly as they relate to candidates. And so we ask, how do we combat this issue, the issue of quality coverage in the new media world? Do credentials still count?

We don’t have the answers yet, we’re simply asking the questions and we’d like to know your thoughts. Feel free to comment here on our blog.