Dramatic Social Media Claims

Today's required reading is from All Twitter, and is an infographic touting the rise of the digital media as primary news source. No surprise here for believers, but the sourcing on the numbers is not exactly deep research. If you want to start an argument, it's a nice place to begin. As you'd expect, dramatic numbers. Over 50% of people get their breaking news via social media. Can I have a parse there? Look, I'm all about Arizona's AD breaking his hires on Twitter -- very empowering. How much of that received info via social media was a Facebook post of a traditional media outlet? This is the point where I have some concern -- if a reporter uses social tools to break a story then follows in the traditional format of the legacy media he works for, is that considered the "new" or the "old" in this presentation? A little j-school leavening might be needed on this graphic -- like burying the lead at the bottom of the graphic: almost 50% report breaking news was false on social media.