Is News Worth Risking a Life?

Source: @FreeJamesFoley (Twitter)

Is the thrill of exposing a news story to the world ever worth putting a life at risk?  I've asked myself this question ever since the brutal murders of American journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff by ISIS in 2014.  Considering I started this University course as an aspiring journalist, I decided to do some research into the dangers of journalism and how often these dangers take lives.  I was shocked at how high the figures are.

My Reflections on Storify

Credit: Flickr.com/EstherVargas

Tech writer, Lianne Cassavoy, describes Storify as a mixture of many different social media platforms: "a dash of Tumblr, and mix in a cup of Pinterest.  Sprinkle it with Facebook and top it off with Twitter, and you'd have Storify".  The new journalism platform was launched five years ago by Burt Herman and Xavier Damman, who had the vision that there are voices on social media that deserve to be published on mainstream media; Storify users curate these voices and turn them into stories.

Defamation and Libel on Twitter

Credit: Pixabay.com

One part of my university course that has really grabbed my interest was when we studied the legal and ethical aspects of journalism, in particular, defamation and libel. Having never studied this side to journalism before, I was shocked by how common it is for people to be sued for publishing harmful information about another person, especially on social media sites like Twitter.