Who can we trust?

We live in an age of disillusionment.

In a world with sensationalist headlines by an often polarized media, people often have a hard time taking news stories at face value. Yet there still are some news sources that we trust-- why is that?

It seems that people often believe what they hear when it comes from news sources that have been around a long time: The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, The Chicago Tribune, CNN, MSNBC, Fox, and the list goes on. During their long history, they have earned the public's trust.

But people don't just get their news from traditional media anymore. These days, social media sites like Twitter and Facebook, provide up to the minute updates of the latest news. Tonight while watching the Olympics, one analyst even quoted a tweet from 1980 Olympic goalie Jim Craig, who was constantly updating during the USA-Canada hockey game, during his broadcast.

But when everybody can be a news source, how do we establish credibility? How often are we misled by our friends tweets and status updates? What about group messages? Are their certain friends or groups that we trust over others, especially when it comes to political news?

Thus far I have had a fairly positive experience with getting news via social media, however, I usually double check the news I get from tweets and statuses. If people posts links, I usually can judge the credibility of the stories by comparing it to criteria I've learned thus far as a Journalism student.

Although on social media sites, it seems that many users are quick to jump to conclusions and repost without really reading or understanding. It seems that social media can be an incredibly reactionary news sources-- people don't really take the time to make their own judgement, or make sure that the information is valid before passing it along.

So do we trust our friends? I think we need to be careful. As users, we must carefully examine the information we receive before deciding what we believe-- this is true in all cases with news, but we must be especially aware when using social media. If someone posts that classes are cancelled due to weather and she's wrong, do you really want to miss your 9 A.M. exam?

So who do we trust? The sad answer, no one, the operative word being one. In order to get the clearest picture of what is really happening, we must do a little surfing.

By getting multiple view points and reading multiple stories, only then are we fit to make a judgement call-- and promptly post our opinion to our profiles.