….social media in news commentary

I have to start by saying that I love, and use, Social Media. I’m not a social media detractor at all. But I have to comment when Sky News report how many ‘likes’ a Facebook page has in a news item. Let’s be realistic about this. Why do people click ‘Like’? Well that depends on the issue I guess but I’d suggest that clicking ‘Like’ is not a complicated business. It requires little thought or consideration of the actual topic you are ‘liking’ but does often reflect a more emotional, rather than a considered, factual, response.

The article on Sky news (Sunday 25th August 2013 approx 8:10) referred to the terrible crash of the Super Puma helicopter in the North Sea. This undoubtedly is a horrendous situation for those involved and their families and it is right and proper that it is reported. But it needs to be reported accurately and without the tinge of sensationalism that pervades the media these days. I want to hear the facts. How many accidents have there been? What are the maintenance issues? Has anyone been negligent, or is this simply a cruel twist of fate (I suggest sometimes there is no one to blame but rather sometimes machines fail, things go wrong). But in the times we live in someone has to be responsible, don’t they?

But, this is not my point here at this time. My point is that it does not matter one iota that one and half thousand people have ‘Liked’ the Facebook page ‘Destroy the Super Pumas’. We have no idea who the ‘likers’ are or indeed their motivation. How many of them are emotional responses? How many of them are well thought out responses? Social Media has it’s place but tends to produce a knee jerk reaction; an emotional response, to situations. There are somewhere in the region of 64 million people in the UK. The view of one and a half thousand people is not therefore a representative sample. It’s not news worthy. It’s cheap, easy, sensationalist journalism and has no place in such an important story.