Reporting On Social Media

Beware jumping into the deep end: Lessons from the Braehead one

The tent village of protesters that has sprung up around St Pauls Cathedral in London is a very modern one: not only do people sometimes go home for a shower and not come back (or do they?), read broadsheets on their tablets rather than the Socialist Worker and worship a variety of gods including David Icke (his insightful utterances plastered on numerous columns) but rather than riot or chant they blog, tweet and spread the word on Facebook.

But for a responsible journalist relying upon social networks can be a false friend as there remains no substitute for proper enquiry and an offer of a right of reply. This was demonstrated recently in a rather bizarre Facebook campaign to boycott a shopping centre in Scotland after an annoyed father claimed that security guards ("intimidating") and even the police stopped him from photographing his young daughter eating ice cream. The story caught the public's