Social Media and Truth

As I stated in my previous post, I do not usually watch the news.  I feel like there are too many sad stories being broadcast and I would rather pick and choose the news that I engage in by reading it off the internet or on social networks.  The social network that I used most often is Facebook, so that is where I usually stay in tuned with the world, from what my friends are sharing on my timeline.

            While I was reading statuses today I came across an article about a Detroit man’s missing son being found in his homes basement.  The boy was found in Wednesday and his stepmother Monique Dillard-Bouthell has been arrested for a bench warrant on an unrelated incident.  The boy, Charlie Bouthell V, 12, was found behind a barricade.  His father, also named Charlie Bouthell, was told about the discovery of his son while in an interview live on air with Nancy Grace.  Grace questioned the father, “How could your son be alive in your basement?” and a shocked Bouthell IV responded, “I have no idea” (WXYZ, 2014).   The mystery of the young child’s finding has stirred up many questions and the father has not answered any more questions and has hired a lawyer.  Bouthell IV states that there is no way that his son could’ve been in his basement for the two weeks he was missing because he has been in his basement several times and Detroit Police and the FBI have checked also.  The Detroit Police have also confirmed this statement saying that they checked four times even one with a cadaver dog, with no sign of the child.  The police said that he was found barricaded behind boxes and a 55-gallon drum, which causes the suspicion of whether or not someone was hiding him.  Detroit Police Chief, James Craig reported, “There’s no way he could have erected this makeshift are of concealment.  It would be hard for me to sit here and tell you that someone didn’t know that Charlie was there” (WXYZ, 2014).

            This information was reported on HLN’s show Nancy Grace, and then repeated on 19 Action News, Cleveland’s website.  I believe that all of the information on the subject is truthful, mostly because it was on a news station’s site, but also because I have read the same information on multiple news sites.  I think that there are times when the news that is found on social sites is reliable.  When you are finding information given by national news sites, their information is usually credible because they are a major news source for society.  In Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age if Information Overload, they mention social media sites as being a way to get news in different forms, like in blogs.  When referring to Twitter or social networking sites Kovach and Rostenstiel note that, “they are ways of conveying information, but they do not dictate the nature of the content conveyed” (Kovach and Rosenstiel, 2010).

References

WXYZ.  (2014). HLN'S Nancy Grace, via CNN: Stepmother in custody after missing Detroit boy found in basement. Retrieved from Website http://www.19actionnews.com/story/25877524/dad-told-on-live-tv-missing-son-found-alive

Kovach, B. and Rosenstiel, T. (2010). Blur: How to Know What’s True in the Age of Information Overload.  New York, NY: Bloomsbury.