It seems that self-made biases and blunders are not the only issues getting in the way of accurate reporting today, as the modern journalist now has to deal with politically charged hackers meddling with communication platforms.

It has been a rough couple of weeks for U.S.-based reporters trying to navigate the rocky social media landscape. Students looking to break into the journalism industry will need to acquire a different set of skills than their predecessors if they’re going to have any hope of survival.

Extra precautions must be made to protect sources and ourselves in the digital age.

S.I. Newhouse School of Public Communications Chair of Digital Journalism and Innovation Dan Pacheco has been working to organize several different events in the last several months as part of an ever-evolving program that merges information technology and communications.

One event is the Cryptoparty that will be held Thursday at The Taste restaurant in downtown Syracuse. Attendees will learn necessary skills for the trade, including password security and various forms of encryption for digital communication, which will become vital if the journalism industry is going to be able to withstand attacks against its structural integrity.

One such attack occurred Tuesday when the Syrian Electronic Army, a group of pro-Syrian government hackers who support President Bashar Assad, gained access to the Associated Press’ Twitter handles @APMobile and @AP to tweet, “Breaking: Two Explosions in the White House and Barack Obama is injured,” which was then re-tweeted hundreds of times.

The AP quickly cited the information as “bogus” and worked with Twitter to take their feeds offline until the incident was resolved. The erroneous tweet caused a brief panic that sent the Dow Jones Industrial average into a 143-point free fall, demonstrating the real consequences false information can have on our society.

The Syrian Electronic army also attacked the Twitter accounts for CBS News programs “60 minutes” and “48 hours,” as well as a local CBS affiliate @CBSDenver. The hackers sent out a series of tweets Sunday about the U.S. government arming al-Qaeda terrorists in Syria, according to www.cnet.com.

The group has also attacked several other news organizations in the past, including BBC, NPR, Al-Jazeera and Reuters.

Twitter officials have announced plans to introduce a two-factor authentication service, which would make it more difficult for hacks to be carried out, but it has yet to be implemented.

Last week’s coverage of the Boston bombings further demonstrated the desperate shape the communications industry is in, as knee-jerk reporters and citizens alike circulated scores of inaccurate information related to the event, inciting a lot of needless panic and eroding the public’s trust in the press.

Almost every fact in this case was distorted by media representatives who scrambled to piece the story together to the point where audiences were left with more questions than answers. Even reputable organizations like CNN caught fire online for misreporting that a suspect had been arrested in the case. Amateur sleuths on Reddit also circulated inaccuracies related to the case, for which they have offered a collective apology.

We didn’t learn anything that we didn’t already know about journalism. But perhaps these events will help open the public’s eyes to the necessary service that news organizations provide by employing people who rigorously fact-check information before releasing it for public consumption.

Democracy functions best under a reasonable, well-informed electorate. By publishing misinformation, we assist in the creation of chaos. While hackers have many different motivations, some appear to have recognized that by discrediting our press, they have the ability to manipulate us into disorder.

Kat Smith is a senior creative advertising major. Her column appears weekly. She can be reached at [email protected], on Twitter at @WhateverKat or by telepathy, if possible.

Published on April 25, 2013 at 1:41 am