You might think it doesn't, but it could.  More and more news outlets are paying attention to what is said on Twitter, Facebook and other forms of Social Media and using them as sources.  

Leaving in PA, the news is filled with Penn State, more so since the child abuse scandal broke. Yesterday news broke that Joe Paterno was in the hospital dying from cancer.  A Penn State student run media organization reported that he had passed when in fact he hadn't.  But their announcement was picked up by media outlets everywhere.  Now a lot of apologies are going out this morning.

There is often a big rush to get information, any information out in order to be the one who broke the BIG news and facts aren't being checked.  We might think we aren't big enough to bring that sort of attention, but you never know these days when eyes and ears are all over the web. Inaccurate information can be harmful not only to you, but to the person or organization you are writing about. Consider the source of your information before using them as a source(and double, triple check).  Remember just writing something and putting it online doesn't make someone an expert, after all even someone like me can have a blog.

You can see some of the fallout on one of my local TV stations FB page-

https://www.facebook.com/WBRETV