Comments on: When witnesses take over the news

By: BBC admits it made mistakes using Mumbai Twitter coverage | Richard Hartley

BBC admits it made mistakes using Mumbai Twitter coverage | Richard Hartley — Thu, 06 Oct 2011 18:44:38 +0000

[...] Jarvis, who writes a column for the Guardian, sparked a debate around Twitter's role that gathered plenty of positive comments about the "coming of age" of the micro-blogging service.Herrmann admits that while tweets gave a [...]

By: DavidDP

DavidDP — Mon, 12 Jan 2009 02:09:59 +0000

BEHIND THE JACKPOT; Divide And Conquer: Movie sweepstake Titans

By: Twitter: From Britney to the Israel Consulate and back to the audience « Jenny Williams

Fri, 09 Jan 2009 12:46:43 +0000

[...] BBC recently admitted its mistakes in its use of Twitter in the recent Mumbai attacks , as the Guardian reports. It’s evident that media organisations are still uncertain about [...]

By: Freelance For Free » How to Write Quality Query Letters: Write a Great Headline

Thu, 18 Dec 2008 23:06:09 +0000

[...] When witnesses take over the news — BuzzMachine [...]

By: How to Write Quality Query Letters: Write a Great Headline | PoeWar

How to Write Quality Query Letters: Write a Great Headline | PoeWar — Wed, 17 Dec 2008 12:47:25 +0000

[...] When witnesses take over the news — BuzzMachine [...]

By: mitnik

mitnik — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 23:23:43 +0000

twittering should never be regarded as journalism.

at best it is a lead that can be verified and broadcast.

at worst it inaccurate, slanderous and biased.

rumour and speculation have never been regarded as news before and this is not the time to start.

By: Tom Seymour’s Splott Talk

Tom Seymour’s Splott Talk — Tue, 09 Dec 2008 00:43:41 +0000

[...] back and assume a macro-perspective is becoming more and more of a premium. As Jeff Jarvis said on Buzz Machine: “Sometimes events are complicated, and we simply need to wait for more information to emerge [...]

By: Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 23:40:21 +0000

Mindy,
blush
fixed.
sorry.

By: Mindy McAdams

Mindy McAdams — Mon, 01 Dec 2008 21:24:02 +0000

Say, Jeff, did you intend to include a link too?

By: Broadband Politics | Mumbai Massacre

Broadband Politics | Mumbai Massacre — Sun, 30 Nov 2008 03:08:21 +0000

[...] zero help with the fundamentals of the “story:” who, where, and why. Nonetheless, the “citizen media” crowd is crowing about the greatness of Twitter-enabled mobs. Sad. The Economist that came in the mail [...]

By: BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » When witnesses take over the news | Hitstopz

BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » When witnesses take over the news | Hitstopz — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 18:48:15 +0000

[...] original post here: BuzzMachine » Blog Archive » When witnesses take over the news Share and [...]

By: Liz

Liz — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 13:03:46 +0000

A ridiculous comment that someone’s photos of a crisis situation at Flickr were “boring”. I assume they were amateur photos and their goal was to capture a moment, not to entertain people. My sense is that people were trying (for better or worse) to share what they knew about the situation and the public can’t expect a highlight reel in real-time reporting especially from nonprofessionals.

There is going to be some confusion in real time reporting, I think people just need to ask about sources and make sure that more isn’t being claimed than what is evident. I know that I was passing along Tweets from a person claiming to be in Mumbai until some doubt was cast as to whether the person was even present in the city. I was impatient for news as the mainstream news wasn’t updating their Twitterstreams and settled for what was being said without considering its veracity. I learned my lesson (I hope!).

People naturally seek explanations and meaning for unexpected events of all kinds whether they are international crises or personal traumas. We need to recognize that hunger for easy answers and not feed it until we have sufficient information that we feel is accurate and not pure speculation. And people in the spotlight who just talk off the top of their heads should be challenged as well to provide some basis for their conclusions.

By: Twitter in Krisenzeiten | pixelReality.log

Twitter in Krisenzeiten | pixelReality.log — Sat, 29 Nov 2008 09:35:20 +0000

[...] über Twitter ist der Dienst in diesen Tagen mal wieder in aller Munde. Während einige Twitter-User es als den Durchbruch des Dienstes für die schnelle Verbreitung von News feiern, kritisiert [...]

By: “Where the news is breaking” « Mordennau

“Where the news is breaking” « Mordennau — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 16:35:17 +0000

[...] qualcosa si è già incominciato a dire. Jeff Jarvis, in un post programmaticamente intitolato When witnesses take over the news annuncia un intervento a riguardo, ma ciò che tutti hanno notato, CNN in testa, è [...]

By: John

John — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 14:46:03 +0000

There is the issue of news coverage informing the terrorists inside buildings of commando movement outside.

By: Mark Dodge Medlin

Mark Dodge Medlin — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 05:54:12 +0000

I’m glad you linked to Amy Gahran’s post, because it illustrates the difference between what eyewitness reporters do and what journalists do. My comment to her is germane here, so I’ll repeat it:

“I saw those ‘please stop tweeting’ tweets yesterday as well, including the one from MumbaiUpdates, and wondered about their source. I’m glad you looked into it. While tweeters perform a valuable service in reporting what they see and hear, you’re doing journalism – analyzing and explaining.”

The photos Vinu posted at Flickr are another example of this difference. Vinu did a fantastic job. His photos were raw, emotional and – near as I can tell – first. But they were also repetitive, and that diminished their impact. Part of a journalist’s job, especially today, is editing, and that’s what Vinu needed.

By: Juan Giner

Juan Giner — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:36:22 +0000

Jeff,

What the media has done inside and outside of India is shameful.

Specially the Indian newspapers.

By: Jeff Jarvis

Jeff Jarvis — Fri, 28 Nov 2008 00:04:35 +0000

I’ve eliminated some hateful and exploitive comments here. It’s a shame one has to.

By: John Kenyon

John Kenyon — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:23:10 +0000

I would agree with Bona above. Yes, real-time reports from witnesses are vital to any full report of an event, and technology has made those so much easier to get. But it’s like the blind men and the elephant – reading all of these reports doesn’t necessarily give you the whole story. That’s where a journalist is still of tremendous value, checking, verifying, following up, sifting, contextualizing and presenting the story in a compelling, thorough way. There is room — and necessity — for both.

By: bernielomax

bernielomax — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 19:19:53 +0000

Oh god – not my day today – RFC1855 is the right standard obviously – http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc1855.html

By: John Carson

John Carson — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:49:58 +0000

Timely post, Jeff. I blogged on roughly the same topic this morning: citizen “journalists” are really just people who alert the world to events happening around them:

http://blogs.gcigroup.com/fineprint/2008/11/27/ive-told-you-a-million-times-dont-exaggerate/

Cheers,
John.

By: onlinejournalismus.de - Das Magazin zum Thema » Blog Archive » Anschläge in Bombay: Web-Quellen

Thu, 27 Nov 2008 18:22:59 +0000

[...] Update, 19:20 Uhr: Über das Social-Media-Ereignis äußern sich auch Christian Stöcker (Spiegel Online), Thomas Knüwer und Jeff Jarvis. [...]

By: Stephane Dangel

Stephane Dangel — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 17:08:02 +0000

Twitter came first, and Flickr second, with the publication of pictures.
Reactivity is an asset but the authentification of the transmitted news still remains an unsolved problem

By: bernielomax

bernielomax — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:52:14 +0000

Err, an edit error: The TV streams (and not the big news channels), the odd in depth article and discussing with indians on the subject was better at giving me the background of the situation that I’ve read today…

I must say that the moderated liveblog of my local newspaper was also great for filtering out the noise. For me twitter still feels at the level of a room doing play-by-play of eurovision.

By: bernielomax

bernielomax — Thu, 27 Nov 2008 16:43:23 +0000

Crowds are good at basic analyst tasks such as gathering, verification and repetition. But they are terrible at strategy and analysis. The second should be the job of the media and politicians, but they hardly master the first. Still, as a spectator and responsible person it is easier to make up your own mind. I am still disgusted at all the violent gut reactions and I’d love an update and enforcement of RFC2822 *.

The first time I really found that the internet was better than TV for news was 9/11 – more ad hoc then because the Internet broke down under the stress. That day CNN did after all change TV – it bugged quite a lot at first – that ticker on the bottom of the screen is still scrolling.

Both katrina and the 2004 tsunami had similar coverage – but then not that many were familiar with the tools.

As for this. Livestation and discussing with indians on getting the background of the situation was more informative than any article I’ve read today or previously on the situation on India. With all this knowledge in vicinity it is easer to be slightly disgusted by the quick and formulaic response from the “anti-terrorist” countries and feel despair because the buzz you hear isn’t a rally for constructive progress – but revenge.

* http://www.faqs.org/rfcs/rfc2822.html