Comments on: Living Ends

By: Ben

Ben — Tue, 07 Jul 2009 04:30:53 +0000

I hadn’t heard that term before: “World Live Web.” That’s a really interesting phrase. We’re totally going more and more in that direction. It’s going to change the nature of search engines I bet. It’s crazy how fast the internet is evolving these days. I was amazed at how fast videos were being uploaded from Iran during the riots. The live web is definitely taking over.

By: Beep

Beep — Sat, 27 Jun 2009 02:49:07 +0000

TMZ has little to lose if they get it wrong. I don’t think most of their audience would leave them. TMZ has done some atrocious things and the following is still there. (although I stay away from the place personally.)

By: Doc Searls

Doc Searls — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 16:43:33 +0000

Agreed, rjh. Now, what to do about it?

By: rjh

rjh — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 12:20:51 +0000

Everything has always been live, but mainstream press slow processes controlled the news enough that the severe problems with “live” are mitigated.

The “live” news is extraordinarily inaccurate. It’s best called “current lies” rather than “current news”, although the intent is not usually malicious.

The old paper press tries hard to reduce the errors and provide accurate news. They had enough success that people can usually trust them. This actually leads to a problem with some news. Take unemployment rate as an example. Nobody knows the current unemployment rate. In the middle of next month, there will be an official guess. This is published as “news” but usually without any caveats. At the end of the quarter there will be a better guess. At the end of the year, there will be a really good guess. And after a few years there will be no more changes to the guess.

The “live web” and the web in general suffers from the absence of accuracy indications. Shills, advocates, fads, delusions, etc abound on the web.

By: Doc Searls

Doc Searls — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 07:11:30 +0000

Thanks, Sheila. Good to be reminded of how responsible journalism still works. Gam, see here about the Goldblum item. And I think we have a long way to go in the validation department. On the Live Web anyway.

By: gammydodger

gammydodger — Fri, 26 Jun 2009 01:20:23 +0000

Twitter reported both the Michael Jackson death and the Jeff Goldblum death today. The news may be real time, but the authentication has a lag. How do we validate news on Twitter in real time?

By: Sheila Lennon

Sheila Lennon — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:17:00 +0000

Afterthought: One source is not enough.

Maybe TMZ has people all over Hollywood who know to call them. But hoaxsters or exaggeraters could call, too. I watched Twitter atwitter,but all over TMZ, if it was linked at all.

Finally, AP seems to have gotten a hospital or family insider to confirm. The AP editors know the name of that source and called it credible, even if they agreed not to name the source, lest he/she be fired for telling the rest of us what was really happening.

By: Sheila Lennon

Sheila Lennon — Thu, 25 Jun 2009 23:03:26 +0000

Doc, I just left the newsroom, and the problem was confirmation. TMZ.com said he was dead, but the family was arriving at his bedside and no one at the hospital would confirm his condition, any condition.

Some news orgs went with, “Report: Michael Jackson dies,” quoting TMZ’s unknown source, but most of us just made pages/modules/blog posts and waited for the green light to upload them.

Nobody wants to have to retract a death announcement, and what difference does it make if you wait to make sure it’s really true. (In the old days, “UPI gets it first, AP gets it right” was a truism.)

Finally, AP got somebody knowledgeable but unauthorized — (the source is known but not named) — to confirm, and we all uploaded.