Jeff Bennett's Blog

The Internet has unleashed a very powerful opportunity to share information with blogs and message boards. This combined with our freedom of speech allows each and everyone of us to be “citizen journalists.” This privilege comes with responsibility though to be truthful, accurate and respectful.

There are so many positive contributions going on around the world with citizen journalists. It is such a shame to learn of someone taking advantage of this privilege and posting an erroneous story about how Apple CEO Steve Jobs had a heart attack. At it’s core this is wrong and it is unfortunate as it casts a cloud over the whole citizen journalist movement. Secondly as was the case this false report had a major financial impact on the stock value of Apple as the blog was picked up by mainstream media and investors showed their concern by selling shares. The citizen journalist responsible for this false report about Steve Jobs could now face criminal charges for stock manipulation, according to one attorney. Lastly, in this case the mainstream media outlet looks like it rushed the story for news value and overlooked its responsibility of checking sources to validate the claims.

We must all respect the privilege of citizen journalism and act responsibly when we publish on the Internet.

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