There Never Has Been, Is Not Now, Nor Will There Ever Be…

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These are the faces of Twitterdom

A Jim West twitter.  At least not this particular one.  So if you ever see or hear of such pretending to be me know now and know forever, it’s rubbish and falsehood.  Else what happened to the sad and sorry reporter from the Washington Post may be your fate as well:

Washington Post writer Jonathan Capehart fell for a fake congressional Twitter account Monday night, writing a story based on the hoax @RepJackKimble account (via New York Observer). “Rep. Jack Kimble” is a fake Republican congressman from California’s nonexistent 54th district. Capehart wrote an article baesd on a tweet the account sent last week: “Why have the wars cost so much under Obama? Check the budgets, Bush fought 2 wars without costing taxpayers a dime,” the tweet read. Capehart called that tweet a “stunning bit of fiscal ignorance,” and went on to analyze the nation’s budget and fiscal health.

Whatever happened to the journalist’s dictum – ‘check and double check’?  (Though that said, I do confess to finding it funny that the reporter took a tweet at face value as a legitimate source.  Sort of like trusting Wikipedia.)

UPDATE:  I’ve learned from the good folks at WordPress how to disable the ‘twitter’ aspect of the ‘share’ feature, so there! HA!  Take that J. Thompson and C. Brady!  HA!!!!

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4 thoughts on “There Never Has Been, Is Not Now, Nor Will There Ever Be…”

  1. I am impressed that you removed the twitter feature that quickly. Well done.

    I have been befuddled at your seeing the WP reporter’s situation as the fault of twitter. As you point out, he simply failed to verify, as every good reporter should. Twitter is simply a tool, no more no less. It is those who wield the tool that determine its value and merit. Otherwise I suppose we could say that all blogs will be the ruination of those who write them….

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  2. Pingback: How Jeremy Thompson’s Exposé brought down Jim West | The Church of Jesus Christ

  3. I think reporters are just not as good as they were 20 years ago. They make mistakes like checking sources and such. People wonder why news papers are in the decline. This is one reason.

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