Wilmer Flores. Joe Paterno. Gabrielle Giffords.
A baseball player. A legendary college football coach. A Congresswoman. It might seem strange that these three people would be mentioned in the same sentence, let alone the same article. There is one way that all these people are connected; they have all had their names attached to misinformation on the Internet. Their names were put on Twitter in connection to stories that were later found to be incorrect.
1. Wilmer Flores, baseball player for the New York Mets
If you are a fan of the New York Mets, baseball in general, or even just watched Sports Center over the past week, then you probably know that Wilmer Flores has been playing baseball for the New York Mets since he was 16 years old. For those that do not know the story, on July 29, 2015, mere days before Major League Baseball’s trade deadline, news broke on Twitter that Wilmer Flores had been traded to the Milwaukee Brewers. With thousands of people in the stadium getting the news on their smartphones, the story eventually reached Mr. Flores about the trade.
After hearing that he was about to leave the only organization that he had known for a third of his life, Wilmer Flores broke down in tears. The problem? The deal was not and would never become official, as the Mets found a problem with the medical records of one of the players that they were supposed to receive in the trade. This, in turn, ended the trade talks and kept Wilmer Flores as a member of the New York Mets.
2. Joe Paterno, Penn State University Football Coach
At the age of 85 Joe Paterno, affectionately known as JoePa, was fighting a losing battle with lung cancer. JoePa held the record for the most wins in NCAA Division I football history at 409 wins, coaching the Penn State Nittany Lions for 46 years. On Jan. 21, 2012, reports began emerging from State College, Pennsylvania that JoePa had succumbed to cancer.
The source was a student-run news website and the story was picked up by many national news outlets such as CBS Sports and The Huffington Post. With multiple outlets reporting this as true, the story went viral and tributes to JoePa's memory were being posted on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram by thousands. Minutes later, the report was refuted with the Associated Press taking pride in the fact that they did not report that Paterno was dead.
3. Gabrielle Giffords, Congresswoman from Arizona
Congresswoman Giffords was attending a meeting with some of her constituents in Tucson, Arizona, on January 8, 2011, when she was shot by Jared Lee Loughner. When news broke of the tragedy, different news outlets rushed to be the first ones to tell their followers about the situation. This is where they ran into trouble; as groups rushed to get details out faster than there counterparts, mistakes were made. In the case of Congresswoman Giffords, reports quickly began to emerge that she had been shot. These reports on Twitter were soon followed by one much more grim, that Congresswoman Giffords was dead.
Just like that, other major news outlets picked up the story and began to tweet out their own confirmation that Congresswoman Giffords had been killed. Less than 30 minutes after the original tweets went out about her death, news began to arrive that Congresswoman Giffords was not dead and had actually been rushed to the hospital and was undergoing surgery.
Twitter seems to be a reporter's best friend and worst enemy at the same time. It is remarkably easy for news to be spread among millions of followers in seconds. At the same time, this easiness has led to a rush by reporters to be the first person or organization to surface breaking news. In an age where people demand information at a moments notice, it is up to reporters to guarantee, without any doubt, that what they are feeding to their followers is completely factual. Wilmer Flores should not have heard from fans in the stands that his entire life was going to be uprooted. Congresswoman Giffords and Joe Paterno should not have been reported as dead, when both were still living. Before the Internet, all of these news stories would have played out in much the same way. The difference, however, would have been that it would not have played out in front of the eyes of millions.
After the attempted assassination of Congresswoman Giffords, NPR media report David Folkenflik may have put it best with the following tweets.
As someone once said, "The possession of great power necessarily implies great responsibility." The media has the power to distribute information and news to millions of people with 140 characters and the click of a button. It is up to those people with that power to use it responsibly or risk losing the trust of those who believe in them.
