Tweets of Deceit ... The case of the Prime Minister who didn't choke and the Texas multiple murderer who didn't kill anyone. Social networking alerts politicians, police and journalists-- and fools them all.

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Part Three of The Current

Twitter Journalism - Jim Roberts

This past week has seen some big breaking news stories, one that started with a tweet that read: Prime Minister Rushed to Hospital After Breakfast Incident. But the story wasn't true. There was no choking, no first aid, no helicopter, no hospital visit.

And there there was another one that mentioned dismembered bodies found near Houston. Oops. Turns out that story was also a fake. No pit, no bodies. But that didn't stop major news outlets, including Reuters, the Associated Press, the New York Times, and our very own CBC.CA from picking up that story. It was first disseminated via Twitter.

Twitter can be great for journalists trying to get a scoop. But as you just heard, fake stories have never had it so good. For his thoughts on whether social media and things like twitter are having a positive or negative effect on journalism we were joined by Jim Roberts. He is the Assistant Managing Editor of the New York Times and he was in New York.

Twitter Journalism - Panel

There are many ways to write a news story, but editors typically insist on the "truth", supplemented with "facts." It's never been easy, but many worry that the new tools that can be so useful can also be traps for even the most dedicated, well-meaning reporter.

Our next two guests are both seasoned journalists. Linden MacIntyre is co-host of CBC's The Fifth Estate. And Alfred Hermida helped start BBC news online and is now a journalism professor at the University of British Columbia. His new book is called Participatory Journalism: Guarding Open Gates at Online Newspapers. They were in our Toronto studio.

The Twitter Song

Of course, no one has to rely on social media. You can slink out of LinkedIN, unembrace mySpace, and close the Facebook. But if you stand back from Twitter? You stand alone. We played a song called The Twitter Song by Ben Walker to end this segment.

Last Word - Things to Come Speech

Earlier, we made fun of science fiction movies from the thirties for their unlikely vision of the 21st century. It may be a good thing those futurists were so off the mark.

We screened the 1936 film Things to Come, based on a book by H.G. Wells and starring Canada's own -- Raymond Massey. Massey's character is in charge of a government of engineers trying to build a better world. He's the film's hero, but frankly -- he sounds nuts.

So maybe we should be glad we don't have the transatlantic tunnel, the robot servants and the jetpacks if this is the kind of leadership we avoided. We wanted to end the program this week, with Massey and the closing speech that was presumably meant to send the audience home inspired and full of hope. Yikes.

Other segments from today's show:

• Emotional Sports Fans
• Google & Autonomous Cars