Social media and the Media Mix Like Oil & Water?

A recent media furore in the US caught my attention today.  The venerable TV news organisation CBS News has been burnt by its close association with a news blogger when they ran a tweet about Steve Jobs death. The story was utterly wrong but the tweet went out from CBS News because of content deal. As a result, CBS has ended its relationship with the blogger who didn’t help matters with her initial flippant apology.

When Twitter and other social media are often cited as the place where stories are broken (think the Hudson River air crash), this recent case illustrates the risks of embedding a social media news feed that has none of the checks and balances of traditional journalism inside a traditional media organisation like CBS.

Professional media clearly is turning to social media and citizen journalists for content but this incident shows more thought needs to be invested in how the two sides interface without causing discord.