How has digital/social media made your job harder and how has it made it easier?

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Social media has had a mixed impact on my reporting and the news business more broadly. On the positive side, social media allows me to report breaking news in real time and to connect with viewers more directly. But, one major downside to social media is that it sometimes fosters falsehoods. It is not uncommon for a report to spend hours trying to confirm a tweet, only to find out the substance is either totally inaccurate or misleading. The other downside is that social media has created a forum for bullying. While I always welcome constructive criticism, I feel as though too often people take to Twitter to lash out. At times, the criticism has been personal and/or profane. I have learned to navigate this by blocking some viewers and not responding to every critic. 

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Do you believe we are in a "post-truth" society and if so, what should professional journalists do to try to regain the public's trust in such an environment?

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I don't think we're living in a "post-truth" society yet, although I do think the boundaries of truth are being tested. Our politics have become very wrapped up in emotion instead of policy and as journalists we bear the responsibility of trying to distinguish between the two. In order to regain the public's trust, I think journalists need to be more aggressive about fact-checking and pushing for policy specifics. I think if journalists do this, ultimately the public will increasingly start to have more faith in the media. 

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