From Feb. 1-5, five radio journalists will sequester themselves in a French farmhouse with only Twitter and Facebook for outside information. All other media such as radio, television, and mobile phones are banned. The objective is to test the legitimacy of news from Twitter and Facebook. The five radio journalists from Canada, France, Belgium, and Switzerland will each report on their respective radio stations. According to Press Gazette:
“The reporters from France Inter, France Info, RTS and RTBF radio will be allowed to click on links put up on Twitter and Facebook, with the exception of Janic Tremblay from Radio Canada, who will be attempting the experiment without ever leaving the two social media sites. France Info will be hosting five live debates on the issue every day throughout the course of the experiment.”
Mathew Ingram posted his thoughts on GigaOM.com. He says this project will only prove:
“that some journalists — and their masters (the experiment is being sponsored by the French public broadcasting association) — are as clueless as anyone else about Twitter or Facebook and how those services can benefit journalism.”
Faulty research design will produce faulty results. A small, qualitative focus group packaged as a reality show will really be testing the quality and accuracy of each journalist’s contact list, not the utility of Twitter or Facebook. They are only tools for information sharing, the platforms where people connect. It’s still up to humans to verify sources and publish quality content.
