Sources and Social Media

By: Kevin LaTorre

BLUE BELL, PA--The exact definition of a confidential source is a right accorded to journalists under the laws of many countries as well as international laws. Confidential sources are also described as protective sources, reporter’s privilege or confidentiality of sources.

     Any person that does not mind giving out information that relates to a fact or story but doesn’t leave his or her name is known as an anonymous tipper.   This kind of confidential source could give out a fact for a story that can be from an unofficial source, will not give any credit for the journalist to credit and it can also lead to false pretenses.  Journalists working on a story who get facts from an anonymous tipper that can give out false information often has the potential to lose to their job.  Worse yet, the story the journalist prints may turn out to be false or force authorities to catch the wrong suspect. 

     Student media creators should know about this important issue.  I had a chance to interview Dave Aston, the Editor-in-Chief for the Montgazette, on the subject of confidential sources.   He explained, “That people who use Facebook, Twitter, and other media sites are all in danger because people these days can give out false stories without anyone citing their own work which can lead to photos being edited and words being altered.” 

     This is a major problem because users can say the person who received the information from is a confidential source.  In reality, the user just posted a fake story, claiming that an anonymous tipper gave the information when it was really their own thought put on the internet for pure entertainment.
 
     Stories featuring confidential stories can gain wide popularity.  Buzzfed.com published a story that was put on Facebook claiming, “[President Barack] Obama ran over [former president] Jimmy Carter with his car last night.”  Cracked.com also wrote that, “The iPhone 5 would have hologram projection.”  This was ranked as a Top Five story and was put all over social media. It turned out to be fake.  Far too often people still believe any story is true because they don’t look for any primary or secondary sources or photos of that story.