Ridiculous article, IMHO. Breaking news isn't 'broken', it's just that there's an immaturity in the consumers of breaking news when trying to interpret the info.
For instance, a couple of years ago when I first joined Twitter after realizing it was the best way to get breaking news (i.e. I literally joined to follow @BreakingNews), one of the first breaking news tweets I ran into was "NORTH KOREA SAYS WAR WILL RETURN TO THE CONTINENT". My initial reaction was "wow, I'm glad I joined Twitter and have early access to this important information". It didn't take long to realize that while the breaking news was true in that it quoted an official NK representative, it was useless in alerting me to a new war because I was not yet aware that NK pulls this kind of stunt relatively frequently.
While there are plenty of incidents in the past week where false information was spread, it doesn't imply to me that I should ignore breaking news until it is properly spoon fed to me in a newspaper article the next day. Instead, it just reminds me that something like a feed from an unfiltered police scanner should be considered as a source of limited information about an occurring event.
You sound like someone still addicted to breaking news.
The point of the article is that the reliable information value of breaking news is exactly zero. Until you get the summarized and verified end-of-week report, you're being entertained instead of informed.
Breaking news is lead generation. It's a stream of leads which may turn out to have a fact at the end. The right audience for that are journalists, not regular people. Tracking live news without doublechecking everything you hear is a way of satisfying information addiction, but it is not a way of getting informed.
I get your point and think it's well stated, I just don't see that it's valid for all types of breaking news. My usage of breaking news is mostly related to participation in the stock market. Sometimes there is breaking news that will immediately alter the outlook for stocks and bonds around the globe.
For instance, the Bank of Japan recently set a target of purchasing 60-70 trillion yen worth of long-term debt and securities per year in an effort to fight against deflation. This type of news is released unpredictably and waiting for an "end-of-week report" may not adequately meet my asset management goals.
I would argue the fault lies as much with the traditional media in displaying what is really wishy-washy as die-hard fact in order to get views/pageviews/whatever else they need.
I agree with your placing blame on traditional media displaying unverified information as facts, for sure. I guess the point I was trying to make is more that much of the incorrect info spread last week was a result of a chain reaction of people incorrectly interpreting breaking news.
For instance, on the matter of blaming the missing Brown student, I remember comments in a reddit thread that were quickly deleted showing a comparison of the face of the Brown student with the officially released FBI photos of "Suspect #2". The comment didn't claim they were the same person, it just raised the question. However, it only took minutes for the reddit hivemind to jump to the conclusion that the Brown student was "Suspect #2"
Yes, the issue with the breaking news fiasco is that there's no more fact-checking built in. I believe that everyday people are just as capable to fact-check as anyone with a degree from Columbia J-School, but erasing something from the Internet is hard. News sites need to work in a way to show "this has been refuted as false" into their reports.
The top ranking story on reddit.com/r/news was constantly updated with corrections/clarifications and citing sources with their level of trustworthiness.
It was edited, but not until later in the day did someone suggest using strikeouts to debunk old material instead of "let's make sure we have the best info we have up here." If you're just editing the text, misconceptions remain.
For instance, a couple of years ago when I first joined Twitter after realizing it was the best way to get breaking news (i.e. I literally joined to follow @BreakingNews), one of the first breaking news tweets I ran into was "NORTH KOREA SAYS WAR WILL RETURN TO THE CONTINENT". My initial reaction was "wow, I'm glad I joined Twitter and have early access to this important information". It didn't take long to realize that while the breaking news was true in that it quoted an official NK representative, it was useless in alerting me to a new war because I was not yet aware that NK pulls this kind of stunt relatively frequently.
While there are plenty of incidents in the past week where false information was spread, it doesn't imply to me that I should ignore breaking news until it is properly spoon fed to me in a newspaper article the next day. Instead, it just reminds me that something like a feed from an unfiltered police scanner should be considered as a source of limited information about an occurring event.