Channel 4 slip-up shows pressures of instant news culture

The decision by Channel 4’s home affairs correspondent Simon Israel to break the unverified news that Trevor Brooks, aka Abu Izzadeen, was the prime suspect in Wednesday’s terror attack, has raised questions over pressure on journalists to respond to fast moving live events.  In an already highly pressured environment, this is exasperated by the fast pace of information sharing on the internet.  

Israel’s claims, which came from a single unnamed source, were quickly brought into dispute after Izzadeen’s brother rang Channel 4 during the programme to inform them that he was in fact serving time in prison. Israel’s haste to break the story led to further complications later on in programming, when the 4+1 rerun of the news had to be pulled off air in order to dispel any confusion and limit the spread of misinformation.

It also had wider implications relating to the ease with which misinformation can quickly spread. The BBC’s Andrew Neil tweeted Israel’s claims, which were then retweeted by his followers before the mistake was realised. In the current media climate where fake news is at the forefront of the agenda, both Israel and Neil have perfectly illustrated the ease with which information is shared and builds traction across the web.

Traditional media outlets no longer break the news as they used too, and often struggle to keep pace with the spread of information on social media where news becomes old in a matter of minutes. As such, an exclusive on the identity of Wednesday’s prime suspect may be hard to resist – the problem here is that if it’s wrong, it’s already too late to retract without having made headway online.