The 11/26 terrorist attack on Mumbai dominated news coverage for days. Most coverage was exactly as you’d expect, with cable news networks getting their footage from Indian television and a few wire service and major newspaper reporters from the U.S. gathering information. The Mumbai attack was unique, however, in its utilization of “Web 2.0″ services like Flickr and Twitter to disseminate information quickly.
This week’s episode of On The Media (my second favorite public radio show behind This American Life) talked to Guarav Mishra, who has been collecting information on how social media sites were used by citizen journalists during the attack. He said that people were going to the attack sites and posting their photos on Flickr, and were retweeting (the equivalent of forwarding) important information on Twitter.
The downside of buying into the information that citizen journalists are reporting via Twitter is that they could be completely wrong, and none of us would know. If someone was standing next to a hotel where fighting was occurring and reported that they saw hostages evacuated, there is no way to be sure they are reporting it correctly. But the moment they post it to Twitter, it is passed on my all their friends, and eventually (as it happened in Mumbai), major news sources might pick it up and treat it as fact.
On the other side, these new services allow an increased level of immediate information from those you are close to. Suppose Twitter had been popular back in 2001 — it would have been incredibly easy to let your family know you were OK, or to report whom you were with and where you were. These sites offer great ways to get short bursts of info out quickly, and make them reach large audiences in a fairly short time. That can be a blessing, but to the news business, it seems like more of a curse.
-Tom Wright-Piersanti
I think this is a prime example of how the “naive public” seems to believe everything on the news or anything published. The fact that Twitter could seemingly be the closest thing to an online aggregated public sphere, hopefully will cause people to become skeptical about what people post. Though information may be given quickly through Twitter, I find it really hard to believe that it is all accurate. Unless there are privileged sources or links to video coverage, it’s hard to trust “big news” on these types of media outlets. It’s going to come down to reliable sources actually backing up the “facts” that are given in a rapid and aggregated manner.
Comment by stinetran — December 7, 2008 @ 8:16 pm
My favorite part of the program was the interview with Arnab Goswami, chief editor of the English-language network Times Now. He said that he stopped on air reporters from giving some breaking news that disclosed location and response information, so that it wouldn’t give the terrorists any perspective on their own attacks.
What’s so interesting about this case is India’s fledgling independent media, only 10 years old, is still fighting for self-regulation. “It’s very important that we don’t give the opportunity for anyone in the government to accuse us of giving away these kinds of details,” Goswami said.
His overall message? “We need to be prepared. Both in the media and in the government”
- Keith Carne
Comment by carneage — December 9, 2008 @ 2:29 am