Crimson Reporters Overuse Facebook Figures

To the editors:



Re “Facebook Fanaticism,” column, Oct. 12, and “Students Rage for a Living Wage,” news, Oct. 11:

I have an idea as to why Facebook might be so incredibly popular here, and it is because of The Crimson. I love Facebook just as much as anyone does, but The Crimson’s use of Facebook as a source for its articles has gotten pretty ridiculous.

Let me give an example. Say that I’m a Crimson editor writing an article about a student campaign for a living wage. “Oh,” I think to myself, “I’ll just check the Facebook group section to see if the Student Labor Action Movement has a group, and then I’ll include its group membership in my article.”

Facebook does have a lot of information about what’s happening on campus, but Facebook group membership is completely arbitrary. Just because a group has 200 members, it does not mean the group’s “idea” is important to all 200. Nor does it mean that the group’s creator is an authority on the subject, because there are no prerequisites for making Facebook groups.

Ultimately, whether or not to include Facebook group statistics in The Crimson’s articles is not my prerogative, but I think that it discounts your paper’s good journalism. After all, what sounds more credible: “According to the group organizer,” or “Acccording to its facebook group?” I’ll leave that up to you.



JONATHAN M. HYMAN ’08

October 12, 2005