- David Bowie performs at Tweeter Center outside Chicago in Tinley Park, Ill., on Aug. 8, 2002. Photo by Adam Bielawski (commons.wikimedia.org)
Just after midnight in Chicago, early Monday, Jan. 11, a tweet from The Hollywood Reporter announced the death a day earlier of music icon David Bowie.
As a fan of the artist, I was shocked at what I considered Bowie’s untimely passing. I’d heard no rumors of ill health. In fact, I’d seen a few recent headlines about a new CD release by the artist, which turned out to have occurred two days before his death — on Bowie’s 69th birthday.
Despite my training as a journalist to seek accuracy above all else, I hoped the story was wrong. I wanted it to be a horrible rumor, another social media mistake prematurely killing off an unsuspecting celebrity.
Twitter heads like me know not to trust every tweet that hits our timeline. Yet, when it is true, we hope to commiserate with our social comrades. So I was torn about whether to retweet the news immediately (and just retweet a correction later if it turned out to be a hoax) or wait and let confirmation (and corroboration) come from other reputable media sources before sharing the sad announcement.
In weighing these options, I engaged the “critical process,” a method that can help consumers find which media content is trustworthy. The process outlined in the textbook “Media and Culture: Mass Communication in a Digital Age (Campbell, Martin, Fabos)” requires “description, analysis, interpretation, evaluation and engagement.”
I quickly texted a friend to discuss the headline and whether or not to believe it. I told her it originated with The Hollywood Reporter. As journalists who’ve worked for celebrity magazines, we both know THR’s work as a reputable source for showbiz news. “HR is credible,” she wrote. I replied that I trusted them too. (Description)
Also, THR’s tweet said explicitly that a Bowie rep had confirmed the news to them. This added layer of reporting said that the site was staking its own reputation on the facts and not just relying on another news outlet’s work. This is what I’ve come to expect from THR — its pattern of independently reporting/verifying facts. (Analysis and Interpretation)
But I didn’t tweet yet. My friend and I both scoured the Internet looking for comparable news sites to say the same thing. Most were attributing their reports to THR. Then CNN International had it. “AP’s confirmed it now,” I wrote to her. “Variety too,” my friend texted. I finally saw a tweet from what I considered an original, definitive source: Bowie’s son, filmmaker Duncan Jones.
I believed the story now — though I didn’t want to. The reputation of THR, its pattern of accuracy and an added word from an insider made it OK for me to share. (Engagement) I didn’t need to be among its first tweeters, but as a Bowie believer, I couldn’t wait to mourn with likeminded tweeters.
CMSU Reflections 