Stephen Collins has an excellent post up about the role of social media in reporting the tragic events in Mumbai. The commentary on the thread is also excellent.
I think the events in DC last week also illustrate this point, though they also illustrate the potential for inaccuracy, since Gen. Mukasey hadn’t actually passed away, as initially reported, but simply collapsed. However, those initial reports were corrected pretty rapidly, and prior to any reporting by the traditional media. I think the lesson to learn is that due to the “BREAKING” nature of news, inaccuracies make their way into these reports, but I that the correction mechanism here is built into the model. Due to the distributed nature of citizen journalism, inaccuracies can be rooted out and corrected quickly.
I’ve been following the events out of India via the excellent BreakingNewsOn and they’re quicker than CNN & the BBC and (though I haven’t conducted a study) very accurate and diligent about correcting themselves. Interestingly enough, they have just as much global reach as CNN, because their sources are distributed across the globe, providing information on an “as it happens” basis.
Time for the traditional media to hop on the clue train if they want to keep up. I think Peter Shankman’s Help A Reporter Out (HARO) is a step in the right direction. Another good step is Rick Sanchez on CNN, he twitters as @ricksanchezcnn and often uses it to solicit the opinions of viewers, and reads them on air. They’re mostly using these people for quotes, rather than for any actual content or reporting, but, this is a step in the right direction, and a step in the direction of using citizen journalists to drive reporting.
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Thanks for the link and kind words, Daniel. Much appreciated.
I really do think we’re seeing a shift in the way news is broken and engaged with. The power of traditional media outlets to mediate and present only the news they see fit, or in a way they see fit (editorialisation) is gone.