Consider the Source

Today, I read an article entitled, "All Is Fair in Love and Twitter" where a New York Times writer chronicles the creation of Twitter.  My first reaction to the article was, "how does the author know so much about the details of what went on between the founders of the Twitter site?"  To answer this question, I referred to "Criteria to Evaluate the Credibility of WWW Resources" and followed the steps to determine the source of this information and analyze the credibility of the author.

A Google search was necessary to learn more about the author, Nick Bilton, in order to determine the his credibility based what types of articles he has written previously. Mr. Bilton is a regular contributor to the New York Times and therefore, I would tend to believe that he would be a fairly credible resource on the topics that he writes about as it would unlikely that he could maintain a long-term relationship with the New York Times if he were not credible.

The Google search brought up Mr. Bilton's upcoming book release on Amazon, "Hatching Twitter: A True Story of Money, Power, Friendship, and Betrayal", which is the book on which the article is based. The book is due to be released on November 5th. The description eludes to fact the Mr. Bilton had access to a great deal of resources to confirm the story that he is telling about Twitter, but without he book having been released yet, it was impossible to find the details of where the information originated.  More concrete information regarding the sources for this article would have been helpful in determining the accuracy of the content.

One bit of information about the author, Mr. Bilton, on his Amazon bio states, "Bilton's columns and articles for The New York Times have led to investigations by the Federal Trade Commission, Department of Justice and Congress."  This would lead one to believe that his reporting is in fact very relevant and highly respected. His articles clearly include information that is important rather than simply telling a story for the reader's enjoyment or leisure.

This article is a great example of how impactful unrestricted web publishing through mass media could be as there are situations in "All Is Fair in Love and Twitter" that would definitely damage relationships if they were in fact untrue.  For example, the article describes how Jack Dorsey wants to oust his colleague, Noah Glass, but goes about this in a manner that comes across as extremely underhanded and backstabbing.  I would hope that if this were in fact true, that both parties were well aware of this prior to this article and book being released.  It is incredibly important that news journals maintain a high level of credibility in order to be successful, as readers would not likely continue to choose that particular source for their news if the news reporting agency were consistently allowing reporters to provide articles without any sort of substantiation.

In summary, I find that the article in question is likely factual, however the lack of clearly cited sources does cause the reader to be unclear if it is indeed a true account rather than a fictional story. Based on the author's background and history, I would tend to believe the article to be a true account of how Twitter began.