Falling for the joke: the risk of using Twitter as a news source

The BBC was left red-faced after quoting a parody account in its Zimbabwe coverage, exposing the danger of journalists relying on social mediaThe trouble that the BBC got itself into on Wednesday morning, when both online and on air it referred to tweets from a parody Zanu PF account, illustrate the complexities of using social media as a reporting resource. This can especially be true in fast-moving news situations, where news organisations may have few reporters directly on the ground.While ma