Do you get hard news from social media?

I get a fair amount during working hours via twitter. I follow twitter as part of my job, so i watch out for stuff in my industry but also stuff that interests me.

Stuff on Facebook is too slanted to one side or the other to be reliable enough to provide useful information.

I wouldn’t describe it, exactly, as “getting hard news from social media,” but more like you describe it in your details: some of my friends on Facebook post links to news stories I might have missed. It is hard to keep up with everything; you can miss a few things, but then, when they link to a story or an article, I treat it like any other news story I encounter.

Not so much Facebook, but Twitter is useful to access up-to-date news from a whole range of sources. I follow a lot of journos as well so I see tweets about things happening in parliament that I wouldn’t normally have access to. I also follow the local police and other emergency service feeds. Twitter and Facebook were an important source of information during the floods in Qld. People might not have had access to their computers, but they could access social media via their phones. News stories were being shared, information from emergency services, photos from people on the ground. Twitter was especially useful.

I do follow local news sources through their FB feeds – one of which originated as a social news source where local residents report about traffic incidents, fire and police activity, wether occurrences, missing pets, etc. I also have my town and state and county in my FB feed. I feel better informed, since it all happens in real-time.

As for national and international news, I do have friends that post articles, but I usually check the source before clicking through, since there are so many false viral reports about celebrities dying and political propaganda, etc. When in doubt, I’ll do a web-search to see if there is any mention of the incident by more reputable sites.

I only watch Fox…nothing else. When Oboma come on I either mute it or change channels.
I did the same thing with Clinton. So if I have to do it another 4 years…so be it, I am not missing a damn thing.

@Roby So you don’t get any hard news, just Fox?

I usually hear about what’s going on first through social media and then look it up on a “hard news ” site to get the fuller story.

I just don’t no. I used to wake up and watch 24 Hour Finance, with stocks and share prices, when I was working. It was part of my job. I also linked it to my phone. My parents were also “News” fanatics. When it came on the TV we all had to stop doing what were were doing, and it was put on full blast. This included radio. I have no idea why but when I became depressed, I switched off my television, I also stopped watching any news whatsoever. I deleted my Face Book account and certainly did not follow any news links, or even their status changes. I did notice one though, it was a friend who was shot, in the army many years ago. I guess it was the anniversary date. It was quite a dramatic photo of him, as he was shot in the head. That was on face book. Here too, there is so much bad news, that is an objective perspective, it affects me deeply, so much so I cannot look anymore.

Absolutely not. I remember meeting a candidate at the poll and saying I hadn’t heard much about him. His wife explained that it had been on Facebook and I was like, “Why would I get my news there?” This whole thing with Russian interference confused me too. I had no idea that people get news from Facebook. I rarely use social media. When I do, it’s for pictures of family, cute animals, and teacher jokes.