

Ask a Baby Boomer what he remembers about his childhood and generally you will hear a long rant about how life was slower “back in his day”, slower and easier. Now, this may sound like a cliché, but perhaps there is something there. Today everything is built for speed: drive thru restaurants, self-checkout lines, online news.
Young people today (myself included) are obsessed with doing things fast and knowing things first. This is especially true when it comes to the news. Though the type of news that is important to my generation may not resemble the interests of my grandparents, or parents for that matter, I want the information and I want it five minutes ago.
This need for speed is one reason that innovations such as RSS feeds and Twitter have become so popular in the
last few years. Subscribers of these technologies are able to have information streamed to them every minut
e of every day. The information is hand picked and send to mobile devices in a flash.
So what is the problem? If young people today are consuming news thats a good thing right? What could possibly be the harm?
The problem is while the information is disseminated faster, it is also becoming less reliable. The old standards of truth and accuracy have been pushed aside and replaced with speed and novelty.
It may not be a problem when the incorrect information is merely a piece of gossip such as when a blogger broke the story of Lady Gaga being a hermaphrodite and other news media followed suit, but what if the information was of dire consequence?
The news of Michael Jackson’s death broke on Twitter initially and spread through social networking sites like wildfire, so is it possible a serious (but false) story could also spread and cause widespread panic? I think it is.
With the emphasis now on fast reporting rather than accurate reporting, I think the audience of the Internet age will likely consume more media, but less truth. This is a crisis of the traditional journalism ethics and should be taken under consideration.
Truth, accuracy and fair reporting should be fundamental steps to any good journalism, with speed and flare just behind. Legitimate news media need to take a step back and realize that the public may want the story now, but they need the story straight.