Social Media as a New Medium of Irresponsible Journalism

In this day and age, the meteoric rise of social media as a news source, and the growing desire for instantaneous content and information; responsible journalism is more important than ever. Old media such as books, magazines, printed journalism and newspapers has broken away from being objective news sources to becoming a tool for political bias. On the other hand, in order to attract customers, news media have begun transitioning from reporting to a form of entertainment. Media sources has a lot of influence in our modern society, and the foundation of our personal philosophies stems from irresponsible journalism through the major news sources we consume. However, irresponsible journalism would often go unaddressed. In our new and modern society and generation, it is easy to delete news sources in the internet such as electronic newspaper and electronic magazines, hence destroying all the ethical reason for responsible journalism. News sources would often publish news without certainty of its information.

One of the leading social media news source, the New York Post, published the infamous article titled “Bag Men”. The article was about the Boston Marathon terrorist bombing of 15 April 2013, where the New York Post unsubtly suggested that 16-year old Salaheddin Barhoum and 24-year old Yassine Zaimi were the Boston Marathon bombers. The New York Post published both of their images, with a sub-headline of “Feds seek this duo pictured at Boston Marathon”, after discovering that the law enforcement wanted to interrogate and question Barhoumi and Zami based on the surveillance footage that was found. Barhoumi and Zami were spotted carrying a duffel bag, where they watched the race from the finish line, but left the area before the blast. It turned out that both Barhoumi and Zami were completely innocent, and the New York Post found itself tied up on the other end of a lawsuit.

The article “Bag Men” by the New York post clearly represents a work of irresponsible journalism. The lawsuit was about whether the New York Post accusation of Barhoumi and Zaimi as the marathon bombers was amounted to defamation. During the lawsuit, the New York Post’s lawyer defends itself by arguing that “The article cannot reasonably be read to state or imply that the plaintiffs were the perpetrators of the bombing or were suspects in the crime; much less does it affirmatively suggest that the author intends or endorses that conclusion.” In addition, they argued that the story that it was based on was legitimate. The argument rests heavily on the fact that the article’s title only informed the public that the authorities had identified “potential suspects”, and that there was no “direct evidence” linking Salaheddin Barhoumi and Yassine Zaimi to the marathon bombings. Furthermore, the New York Post had deleted any evidence of the infamous article, avoiding any sense of responsibility.

Authorities would eventually release photos of the real suspects, who turned out to be brothers Dzhokhar Tsarnaev and Tamerlan Tsarnaev. However, the false accusation has long lasting negative impact on both Barhoum and Zaimi. Once the false information is out there, Barhoum and Zaimi were unable to defend themselves, clear their name, fight suspicion or tolerate disdain. Not only are they victimized, but their reputations are destroyed and harassment runs over restrained judgment. The article has caused psychological devastation and a feeling of helplessness to both Barhoum and Zaimi.

The article represents a work of irresponsible journalism as it falsely accused Barhoum and Zaimi to be the Boston Marathon bomber. I believe that irresponsible journalism matters as it is able to easily influence the mindset of society and heavily affect the person they are writing about. Moreover, I disprove with how the New York Post handled the situation, on the fact that they are denying that they made a mistake and avoiding any sense of responsibility. Journalism has changed over the years, with more content consumption shifting online, this have undoubtedly impacted the quality of news. It used to be that printed books and newspapers could be relied upon as a source of a reliable and well researched information of a journalists’ work. But in the digital media space, one that feeds on the speed of the internet and all of its third party information, will it be able to report the news as accurate and responsible as its predecessors? No. However, I strongly believe that the solution for the future of responsible journalism is accountability. Not only do we have to own up for our mistakes and take full responsibility, but also be certain for a fact that the information that we are going to publish is legitimate and reliable.