Living in the Future, News Media edition.
Apr. 19th, 2013 11:30 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
akirluYeah, it's a new media world. Last night Hal was following the events around MIT in real time on Twitter and the live feed of Boston's emergency scanner traffic. In bed, on his tablet, on the other side of the country from the breaking news. Eventually he did put on the headphones so I could sleep, and some time after that apparently the scanner feed fell over dead from traffic overload, but in all, it was very much a "not your grandfathers news feed" moment.
Amid the updates of events as they happened -- the MIT officer shot, the suspect in custody, the other shot, word of the live suspect being put in the police car naked -- there was a fair bit of victory dancing on Twitter about scooping the traditional media -- claims were that the television and radio crews were nowhere to be seen on the scene at the time. And it's true, for certain types of events Twitter is going to beat the pants off traditional media now that tweeting from your phone is pandemic, particularly around major cities and universities; heck, even the Seattle LJ group used to be a better source of breaking news than the actual, you know, news, when it came to bank robberies, shootings, and similar stuff in the immediate UW neighborhood, because so many of the folks on the group were UW students or recent alumni. And in my observation, ordinary citizen journalists don't sound any more vapid and half-witted than journeyman television journalists, as we found out during the Rodney King riots in LA, when the local stations were mobilizing anyone with a pulse and an ounce of telegenicity to do at-the-scene stand-up. In fact, the tweeters sound considerably more concise and focused. I guess there had to be some advantage to all that practice getting stuff said in 140 characters or less.
Amid the updates of events as they happened -- the MIT officer shot, the suspect in custody, the other shot, word of the live suspect being put in the police car naked -- there was a fair bit of victory dancing on Twitter about scooping the traditional media -- claims were that the television and radio crews were nowhere to be seen on the scene at the time. And it's true, for certain types of events Twitter is going to beat the pants off traditional media now that tweeting from your phone is pandemic, particularly around major cities and universities; heck, even the Seattle LJ group used to be a better source of breaking news than the actual, you know, news, when it came to bank robberies, shootings, and similar stuff in the immediate UW neighborhood, because so many of the folks on the group were UW students or recent alumni. And in my observation, ordinary citizen journalists don't sound any more vapid and half-witted than journeyman television journalists, as we found out during the Rodney King riots in LA, when the local stations were mobilizing anyone with a pulse and an ounce of telegenicity to do at-the-scene stand-up. In fact, the tweeters sound considerably more concise and focused. I guess there had to be some advantage to all that practice getting stuff said in 140 characters or less.
![[community profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/community.png){kind=small}