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The art of crafting a breaking news alert

My own experience centres around the importance of being quick to spot trends people are searching for, or are gaining traction on social media, verifying their accuracy, and imparting important information

Lucy Anna Gray
Thursday 20 December 2018 02:24 GMT
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Fake news is not just a phrase for sources we don’t like – as much as the US president may think it is. The two words actually point to an ever-growing problem in online journalism that quality publications have to constantly be wary of. Never more is such caution necessary than in breaking news situations.

“Breaking news” may conjure up images of reporters in the field, live in front of a camera, a finger pressed against their ear with a hurricane raging behind them or gunshots from a war zone.

Of course, we do have correspondents who handle breaking news this way at The Independent. But in actual fact my own experience of breaking news, from within the office’s audience team, centres more around the importance of being quick to spot trends people are searching for, or are gaining traction on social media, verifying their accuracy, and imparting important information as quickly and responsibly as possible .

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