How well did social media and journalism perform when some twit reported that Canadian music icon Gordon Lightfoot had died? Not so well, says Dale Bass.
Thank god — Gordon Lightfoot’s still alive.
Was at work; the
boss came out, told me he’d read on the Internet Lightfoot had died. So
I went to Twitter — dumb move!!! — and sure enough, all the
#lightfoots were being RTed saying he was dead. So I Facebooked it, and
learned from another friend that the story had been pulled from the
Canwest sites. Should have gone to the Google news search to begin
with, I guess.
And the lesson here? One that somebody who’s
been a journalist since she was 18 and working on an Underwood should
have known. Anybody with a laptop and the nerve to do it can say
anything and have a lot of people believing it.
Update: Ok,
still checking Twitter, found an RT of an RT of a David Akin tweet where
he acknowledges some responsibility for the Mark Twaining of Lightfoot
in his blog.
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