News Gone Wild

Social media often doesn’t tell the whole story

When a news story makes it to social media, some interesting things can happen.

One, of course, is that the story gets spread, possibly going viral, which can be a good thing. More and more people are getting their information this way.

But too often they aren’t getting the whole story. Or even the right story.

This week we ran a piece on the front page about the upcoming foreclosure sale of Central Mall.

The current owners defaulted on a loan, and the property will be sold. The mall will remain open as the management company—the folks who actually run the mall— is separate from the ownership. In other words, operations are unlikely to be affected anytime soon.

Well, in going from the printed page to Facebook, the story kind of changed. We have been seeing a lot of posts claiming the mall will be closing down completely. Maybe even bulldozed.

That’s not what’s happening. Not even close.

This isn’t the first time we’ve seen a story gone wild. And it won’t be the last.

A big part of the problem is that people read a headline and never bother to check out the whole story. They just make an assumption, comment about it and it goes from there. And the misinformation gets shared further until the truth is buried amid confusion.

In some cases it’s a minor misunderstanding that is easily corrected. In others it could affect an individual’s reputation or a business’s bottom line.

Social media can be a great tool for getting the word out. But do yourself a favor. Go to the source and read the whole story.