VERIFICATION OF news sources is more important than ever in the era of social media, a conference in Dublin has heard.
The two-day Mash Conference 2011: Exploding Media took place at the Croke Park conference centre and attracted professionals working in social media, journalism, marketing and public relations.
Burt Herman, chief executive of Storify.com, a platform to allow people create stories online, said that in the era of social media, “everybody is a reporter”. But Mr Herman, formerly a journalist for the Associated Press, said this did not mean verification of stories was now less relevant. Citing the example of a tweet sent following the killing of Osama bin Laden, he said there was “definitely a verification role that needs to happen”.
In a panel discussion on the future for media after WikiLeaks, Irish Times journalist Fintan O’Toole said the media would still be understood through “very old methodologies in terms of journalism”. He said human beings were “very much attracted to what was new” and tended to exaggerate novelty.
The one word that distinguished professionalism from amateurism was “accountability”, he said.
Also taking part in the panel discussion were journalist Sarah McInerney and Vaughan Smith, founder of the Frontline Club, which was established to support independent journalism.
Mr Smith provided sanctuary to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange when he was fighting extradition to Sweden late last year.
Mr Smith said it suited newspapers to portray Mr Assange as “a Bond villain” because they were under threat from the work he was doing with WikiLeaks.
In a separate session, John Mulholland, editor of the Observer, said the stories that emerged from the WikiLeaks information could not have been done without newspapers such as the Guardian.
He said six to eight journalists had worked on the documents for about six months. This was a “classic example” of professional editorship and journalism, he said.
He said that paper would not be around forever, but professional editing and journalism skills would always be needed.
Bill Thompson, who is working on developing the BBC’s digital archive, said many people did not want to believe things were changing. But it was not a “once in a lifetime” transition that was happening, rather a “once in a civilisation” transition from an analogue to a digital world, Mr Thompson told the event, for which The Irish Times was a media partner.