According to some sources on Twitter and Facebook, Copernicus Hall burst into flames Sunday evening and classes would be cancelled for the week. White smoke was billowing from the building, firefighters were on the scene and students were rejoicing that their beloved classrooms would be far too damaged for academia to occur within them.

This misinformation went on for some time. Two of our reporters were dispatched to gather information; one walked down to the scene of the alleged fire, the other called the University’s spokesperson for more details. Almost simultaneously, they discovered that the white smoke was steam spewing from a broken valve in the building.

Firefighters and police officials laughed off questions about any emergency as they left the scene almost as quickly as they came. The spokesperson confirmed that the situation was under control, going so far as to say that there was “no situation” at all.

Rumors spread much more quickly through social networking. Sometimes it’s a good thing: news of an east coast earthquake in August literally traveled faster than the earthquake itself thanks to Twitter and Facebook. Other times, students are jumping for joy in their pajamas to the thought of cancelled classes and burning academic buildings. While social networking can be a useful tool, it must be used with caution.

Students have a responsibility to exercise judgment and critical thinking as they digest the overload of information accessed through these networks. Retweeting, liking and sharing can all be useful tools to disseminate accurate information, but dangerous when disseminating inaccurate information.

We feel it is important to ask a series of questions when absorbing any information. Is the purported event possible within the details given? Do the details given validate the conclusions being drawn? Where is the information coming from? Is it a reliable source?

If a given student had asked these questions, they may have wondered why smoke from the alleged fire wasn’t black. They may have wondered why the conclusions being drawn by social networkers didn’t align with the given information and that many people spreading the information hadn’t seen the smoke firsthand.

On the other side of things, news sources have a responsibility to act as reliable sources. When we caught wind of the rumors, we arrived on the scene and contacted reliable sources to gather more information. Upon discovering the information, we made a point to correct the inaccuracies being spread around by hopeful students awaiting class cancellations.

For news organizations, it is often easy to submit to sensationalism and use similar rumors as the basis for news stories. Sometimes, our best work comes from correcting misinformation rather than disseminating new information.

Students must not only exercise better news judgment, but choose the right reliable sources that they can count on to deliver the real story.