Between the Technological Hare and the Journalistic Tortoise: Minimization of Knowledge Claims in Online News Flashes

• In Event: Technological Challenges and Innovations in Journalism

Abstract

A growing series of news platforms such as live blogging and push notifications are struggling with the extreme pressure of immediate reporting. The current study explores which strategies of knowledge acquisition and knowledge presentation journalists who operate immediate channels are using to address the mounting pressures and enhanced risk of error. It focuses on online news flashes that enable systematic comparison of four types of output: routine and crisis news flashes and routine and crisis final items that follow them. Findings show that news flash editors develop special practices to acquire and present knowledge – the most prominent being minimization of knowledge claims. According to “inductive error” theory, the studied websites act as responsible epistemic actors, who are so concerned about “false positive” errors (untrue publications), that they do not hesitate to make “false negative” ones (minimizing knowledge claims).

Authors

• Shelly Rom, Ben-Gurion U of the Negev

• Zvi Reich