Trolled

Online journalism is great it allows for you to have access to so much information that otherwise would be unavailable to you such as direct contact on twitter with someone you may be seeking a comment from. I myself have used twitter to resolve technical issues talk to certain people and generally try to remain informed. My issue is probably that I don't all together trust it and I see a lot of journalists become comedians instead of journalists when covering events on twitter.

One major issue I can think of is troll accounts or just fake accounts in general. One instance I can think of this hurting a reporter is the case of TMZ sports writer Keith Jackson who after Ronda Rousey's upset loss to Holly Holm wanted a comment from the super star or her trainer. This lead him to trying to contact Rousey's coach Edmond Tarverdyan but ultimately ended up getting a comment on twitter from @EddieTarverdyan  fake twitter account who posts jokes in the guise of Edmond.

Of Course Jackson denied the claims he spoke to a fake account and claimed as he should that his interview was done on the phone. Though the issue was the troll account had images of their interaction and showed the basis of Jackson's article was solely on their text conversation. The image will be attached below but this is the kind of issue I find with the digital age. We become used to a form of interaction that really makes us have no idea who we are interacting with.

For more thoughts check out my Quick Take on getting trolled in podcast form. 

https://soundcloud.com/johnhartfordjr/trolled