Another aspect of immediacy

One of the five characteristics of the web -- identified and explained in Web Journalism -- is immediacy, the ability to post information quickly. With the growth of the blogosphere, this charactertistic has taken on another aspect: the ability of people to pass information around quickly, even if it isn't true and doesn't make sense. Frank Ahrens, in his Washington Post Web Watch column, has a good example. He cites the case of what happened to Wal-Mart last week.

More

Read more about journalism and issues facing the profession at JPROF.com.