The advent of social media presents challenges and opportunities for modern-day journalism.
This is according to Burt Herman, co-founder of Storify, a social network service that lets users create stories or timelines using social media.
"Social media networks have made journalism a lot more competitive, with journalists at times having to compete with the average citizen for breaking news," he says.
"The continued growing use of Twitter and Facebook to report news has resulted in the consumer perception of real-time news changing - people now expect to receive news instantaneously and expect constant updates of developments. This is significantly influencing the direction and practice of journalism."
Herman notes that these platforms present challenges regarding exclusive access to breaking news, but they are also a valuable tool in aiding journalists in their newsgathering and audience engagement, and can assist in taking stories further.
"One of the stories I had to cover at the Associated Press (AP) involved tracking survivors of the Berlin Wall [collapse]. I put up portraits of these people on Flickr for people to identify and help us locate them. This is just one of the ways in which social media can be used in context, sourcing eyewitnesses quickly," he says.
"It's a significant benefit, making it easier for journalists to track down those who might have a first-hand account of an event."
According to Herman, the key lies in being able to balance social media content with applying the best of the old practices of journalism - the context, fact-checking and critical thinking about what people are saying, and being a watchdog on government business.
"People post hundreds of millions of tweets, Instagram photos and YouTube videos; most of it isn't that interesting, but occasionally there are these incredible photos - the plane landing in the Hudson, civil war in Libya or in Syria, the Arab Spring, elections, Obama tweeting that he wins."
There are, however, challenges with accuracy, states Herman, citing an example of US financial markets veering off briefly in April 2013 after a false tweet from the AP Twitter account claiming that there were two explosions in the White House and that president Barack Obama had been injured.
"Markets quickly swung back after the AP said on its corporate Web site that its account had been hacked. The White House confirmed that there had been no incident," he says.
"When the bombs exploded at the finish line of the Boston Marathon, also in April 2013, many of the members of staff of the local news team - the Boston Globe - were actually running in the marathon or were already covering it live. The changing consumer perception of news and the desire for real-time updates has encouraged journalists to step into their roles in situations like this, live-tweeting from the scene and updating readers with vital information on the events."
For Herman, these incidents underscore social media's role in tightly linking global markets, politics, sport and many other topical issues.
"These social networks are seen to be putting journalists at a disadvantage if they have to compete with the general public for commentary on breaking news stories, but the power and the respect that established journalists have means they will probably still be seen as a much more reliable source than the general public ever could," he concludes.
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