Social Media Told Me First

We live in a world where social media not only exists, but is at the forefront of our minds and our daily routines. We used to receive our information at a slow pace, through the daily paper, which would often take days to report the latest non local news. Then the internet came and we could suddenly search for the latest news and the most recent scandals. But we now have smartphones, and they know everything.

This is a time where we have accurate information at our fingertips, quite literally. In times such as these, when we can find endless contradicting stories, why do news sources still attempt to twist everything?

We may have first seen this at play with the tabloids. Those cheap, awful magazines, with enticing stories about celebrities slapped on the front cover that relayed awful information about people who were just human beings.

And then social media began to grow. These same celebrities now have social media accounts where they can document their lives themselves. And they can tell us the truth amongst the lies of the tabloids.

And it’s not just about celebrities anymore. Our country has become so divided on certain issues that we can now watch the news and be offered completely different stories about the same situation. But we can get the facts from someone on Instagram and who is to say that isn’t more accurate?

So let’s get to why I am writing about this. On September 6th, an off duty Dallas police officer, Amber Guyger shot a man by the name of Botham Jean in his own apartment. There are quite a few news articles at this point and several people on the investigation trying to get to the bottom of this case. But it’s not a popular one.

I didn’t hear about this through a news outlet, I heard about it on Instagram. A blogger that I follow named Elle Harper attended grad school with Botham Jean and was close with him. She posted about the tragedy in her stories and nothing but good things to say about him. After seeing this, I looked to the news to find out what had happened. And that’s where I found all of the mismatched details about who he was, the woman who shot him, and the whole incident.

There are now claims that racial profiling was involved, that there were drugs involved, and many more slanderous things. But nothing seems to add up and this case has become messy.

But because of what I saw from a close friend of his on Instagram, I feel connected somehow and rooting for him because if someone can speak so highly of him, what might these news sources be getting wrong?

This is only one example of hearing something first on a social media platform and from someone involved. It happens more often than we think. So the question is whether or not it is fair for news sources to manipulate their information for views when we all have access to the real story? The answer is no. It is unethical and just plain rude. We are smart enough to be able to recognize false information in these situations because social media told us first.