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Friday 27 February 2009

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: Twittering is not checked by editors at Channel 4

In an interview with Journalism.co.uk conducted on Twitter, Channel 4 News presenter, Krishnan Guru-Murthy, admitted the microblogging tool is not checked by editors:
"@journalism_live and twitter is not overseen by an editor - so there are potential problems. blogs are checked before publication #ch4"
I can't believe all the BBC's twitterers are double-checked either. Clearly no one ran a 'second pair of eyes' over this recent effort from Peter Horrocks.

But imagine the volume of new editorial work that would be created if everything had to be placed under the nose of an editor. And it's hardly worth mentioning the obvious fact that such procedures would render using Twitter in any meaningful way virtually impossible.

I think journalists are just going to have to take individual responsibility.

As Guru-Murthy had said earlier in the interview: "I
can't see any real problems, as long as you apply all your normal standards and rules".

All very well in theory, in practice it might not be so straightforward. Twitter is a fast-paced conversational tool; making a serious mistake is far from inconceivable.


When asked if he would be interested in writing a blog Guru-Murthy said:
"not right now. I think i'm better suited to twitter! a blog is hard work - and i write a daily email when on #ch4"

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well spotted - and your analysis is right, too.
It looks weird at first glance but in television especially, there are a thousand things that a journalist will do when making TV news that aren't double-checked. Did you source the pictures? did you double check the stats? when you wrote the caption did you double check the name spelling?
On 24 hour news we have got used to journalists saying that 'we have breaking news - this is all we know - we will try to confirm it and get back to you with the full facts.' as long as are transparent on Twitter and don't make the claim that it can do as much as other more spacious media platforms, than it will be fine. Krishnan is a great example of someone who knows how to use it and to make the most of what it does,
cheers
Charlie Beckett

Anonymous said...

Shame there was no one to double check this article. They might have even managed to get Krishnan's name right!

Daniel Bennett said...

Anonymous:
Thanks for double-checking for me! I've changed the erroneous 'murphy's for 'murthy's. There was bound to be an embarrassing error on any post on double-checking wasn't there? If you want the job full time, let me know. Afraid you'd be on the same pay as me though which isn't very good...

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