Next question?

Thanks for the comment. I sent you an e-mail yesterday looking for your comment, but did not receive a reply in e-mail. Not sure why (if you did send one). In either case, I'm glad you posted here.

You didn't divulge nor link to your source in your bulletin. Yet you mentioned WWLP-TV early on. I said that iit “appears” you were using WWLP as your source. I appreciate you clearing that up, and you're right: I should have contacted you to ask you on that point.

I do find it interesting that you got information from the Springfield Fire Department, but didn't attribute it to them. If your original bulletin said the explosion “rocked the school, according to Springfield fire officials (or according to Springfield emergency officials,” at least the reader would know you're just reporting what you're hearing, not overblowing a situation yourselves.

The original source you used, however, does not change the message of my blog. You're right: as a journalist, I know initial information can be sketchy. Therefore, I err on the side of caution. Twitter, as I said, is a quick, viral medium. We (as journalists) should be careful posting sketchy information as fact, and we should attribute any information when possible. That's my advice to anyone posting news on Twitter (or any other medium).

We think @Breakingnewson is a very interesting new media creation, and we'd be very interested in giving you a chance to say more about how news decisions are made. We do occasional Q&As with media newsmakers. We invite you to do one for us, if you're game.

Thanks,
Robert

Robert,

Your article seems to strongly suggest that BNO News used the information from WWLP-TV, which is not accurate and I believe you should have contacted us first before making assumptions. However, as you may well know as a journalist, information is extremely sketchy when a news story breaks and some details may be inaccurate at first.

BNO News received information from several sources, including from emergency scanner traffic and the Springfield Fire Department. This information was the reason for our bulletin stating that an explosion had “rocked” the school. If this is correct, I am not sure but witnesses may have experienced it like this which lead to this report. BNO News was not aware of the WWLP-TV article when the first update was posted to our website.

After we read the WWLP-TV article, we provided this information to our readers. Shortly after, a spokesman for the Springfield Fire Department briefed us on what was happening and we also provided this information in our article.

Michael van Poppel
BNO News

In addition to this, to the comments below, I don't feel there were any mistakes in our reporting. While this story didn't warrant a “bulletin” (an alert in all-caps), there were no inaccurate updates and updates were provided as soon as we had them. Regarding the tsunami warnings, they are rare and when BNO says there is a tsunami warning, it is accurate. We would never post a tsunami alert when there is none.

You may be confused by the posts that say a tsunami warning center is the source for earthquake information. Tsunami warning centers issue alerts on strong earthquakes and when an update ends with this for example: “- tsunami warning center”, it means it is the source for the information.

It does not apply a tsunami warning was issue. Our updates would let you know if a tsunami warning was actually issued.

Again, our contact information is clear and this blog should have contacted us first before making assumptions without checking the facts.

Michael

That's not to say it isn't a great service, they just need to invoke some old fashioned editorial control, standards and rigour. I've lost count of how many almost-but-quite tsunami warnings the service has pumped out.

One trick they miss – and perhaps this is on purpose – is not linking out to their sources.