Fascinating Poynter live chat discussion (including Danny Sullivan) Chat replay: How should journalists handle incorrect tweets?, 14-January-2011.
The concern being maintaining a transparent public record while (1) correcting misinformation and (2) halting it's dissemination. An interesting point was that much of news spread is actually automatic republication.
Several links to further topic discussion in the set-up article and within the chat transcript, including:
* How incorrect reports of Giffords’ death spread on Twitter by Steve Safran, 09-January-2011.
* How should journalists handle errors in tweets?, quora.com
How Best To Manage Erroneous Tweets
Started by iamlost, Jan 14 2011 10:16 PM
3 replies to this topic
#2
jonbey
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Posted 15 January 2011 - 08:07 AM
My approach would probably be determined by the terms of any insurance I have for publication of any material that could lead to legal action. i.e. some insurers say that you should not knowingly publish anything "wrong" in the first place, others say to take it down as soon as you know.
Actually, thinking about it, the best course is to delete and put up a corrected version. Louise Bolotin, Freelance journalist, author, editor ... says that she deletes for typos but keeps factual errors online, then adds a tweet to correct to avoid accusations of a cover up, but some insurers would not cover you for this approach.
Also, if I am ever made aware that anything I publish online is wrong then I attempt to correct it. Publishing corrections in papers works fine as people tend not to keep old papers, but on the internet people may well find your original publication and never see the correction.
So I say, delete it. The less incorrect information on the net the better.
Actually, thinking about it, the best course is to delete and put up a corrected version. Louise Bolotin, Freelance journalist, author, editor ... says that she deletes for typos but keeps factual errors online, then adds a tweet to correct to avoid accusations of a cover up, but some insurers would not cover you for this approach.
Also, if I am ever made aware that anything I publish online is wrong then I attempt to correct it. Publishing corrections in papers works fine as people tend not to keep old papers, but on the internet people may well find your original publication and never see the correction.
So I say, delete it. The less incorrect information on the net the better.
#3
AbleReach
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Posted 15 January 2011 - 04:56 PM
If you goof, own up.
Clean it up.
Factual errors should be noted in the new tweet - eg add "deleted last tweet for bad info" at the end.
Typos? Grin and bear it. Leave them unless the problem is a broken link. If the link is bad, delete and re-post with the right link. To be clean about it, you can throw in "link corrected."
Hiding out does not demonstrate accountability.
If someone else goofs, you can put out your own info, with a good, reputable, authoritative third-party citation. Don't flame.
Seems simple to me!
Clean it up.
Factual errors should be noted in the new tweet - eg add "deleted last tweet for bad info" at the end.
Typos? Grin and bear it. Leave them unless the problem is a broken link. If the link is bad, delete and re-post with the right link. To be clean about it, you can throw in "link corrected."
Hiding out does not demonstrate accountability.
If someone else goofs, you can put out your own info, with a good, reputable, authoritative third-party citation. Don't flame.
Seems simple to me!
#4
jonbey
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Posted 15 January 2011 - 07:36 PM
If I deleted everything I wrote that had a typo, well, my web presence would be grately reduced.
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