News 2.0 Compares to the High Standard of Traditional Journalism

A company merger recently occurred that may be an indication of how News 2.0 will be kept to the reliable standard of traditional journalism. News 2.0 is the news we consume today from non-traditional sources, such as Blogs and social media channels.

As reported by Curtis Silver Livefyre acquires social media curation tool Storify. “Storify, the popular social curation tool used by individuals and news agencies to organize the jumble of related thoughts on the internet has today formally announced they have been acquired by Livefyre. Livefyre is a commenting platform used by many websites to keep comments organized and relevant to readability.”

A common concern with News 2.0, is that it comes from anyone; not necessarily journalists, Why is this important? Because journalists follow a set of principles to ensure credibility of their information. One principal is that they do not stage news. A journalist would not create a scenario that demonstrates a news worthy fact, even if the journalist knew in his heart that the scenario was positively depicting the accurate truth. Also, a journalist would not say something was true unless the proper number of credible witnesses collaborated the truth. The witnesses do not have to be named, but, they should be identified by role or title by the journalist.

We are now getting our news from bloggers and ‘people on the street’ with a camera-phone. So, how can we believe what we see or hear from these citizens, which  have not been educated and practiced as journalists. The answer is the  ‘Crowd’. The Crowd can be made up of other citizens that also were taking pictures and videos with their phones. Or citizens that were there and can now comment on the Blog Post supporting or denying the findings of the citizen blogger.

Livefyre may be seeing the need to ensure the proper vetting of News 2.0 through the combination of a social curation tool (Storify) and a commenting platform (Livefyre).

We are the Crowd. We are the ones to ensure that the information being disseminated is accurate and true. In many ways, the Wisdom of Crowds will be able to eliminate even the minor biases that were particles of a journalistic piece. So, maybe News 2,0 will become even more trustworthy and non-bias than the old News.