The Twitter Effect

I think it's fascinating how Twitter is changing the process of newsgathering. Many of you last week would have read the MG article about Sky News appointing a "twitter correspondent" to watch the Twitter topics that are "trending" (apologies for those not up with the Twitter lingo- you will be soon enough!)

But it creates dilemmas for itself. Take just this minute. Twitter is going absolutely crazy with the rather grim "news" that Natasha Richardson has been taken off a life support machine (about an hour ago).

Now as far as I'm aware no news channels (including Sky News with their Twitter correspondent) are reporting this as fact. And they're probably right not to- there were numerous Tweets regarding her death yesterday (presumably premature).

And herein lies the problem with the "Twitter effect"- there is a self-perpetuating snowball effect. A rumour published on a blog gets repeated on another and like Chinese whispers becomes a stated fact backed up by apparently numerous sources, none of which are validated.

However, nobody can argue with the first pictures from the Hudson plane crash, or from inside the Taj hotel during the Mumbai terrorist attacks- both Twitter firsts. Even today, Matthew Horne (of Gavin and Stacey fame) tweeted a picture of an early fire in central London- stating that he had just called the fire service.

You can see it here:
http://twitpic.com/27wfh

That was about 5 hours ago- it's interesting that Sky News online (with their Twitter correspondent) are now leading with this story (from maybe 2 hours ago), having seen the fire develop into something quite serious...were they able to despatch film crews to the scene earlier because of a heads-up from Twitter of a potential major breaking story?

I think the next year is going to be fascinating to see how conventional news broadcasting (and gathering operations) copes with the first truly epidemic manifestation of "user generated content"- an oft-repeated 21st century phrase that until now has had little genuine impact on the field of news.

There are of course other projects that could have the "Twitter effect"- Google Trends (http://www.google.com/trends) is another very interesting concept for the news junkies amongst you.

A thoroughly well-considered comment.

You're spot on - Twitter has the potential to be both the a beauty and a beast when it comes to newsgathering. As I see it, appointing a qualified journalist to monitor tweets, and make value judgements on what they read, is probably the best way forward.

I've been following Sky News online correspondent Julia Reid's twits from the Fritzl trial in Austria which gives you a more 'raw' impression of what is going on from the journalists point of view covering the event.

Sometimes that will lead to some twits being speculative information from other hacks or bystanders, but it's all about getting out information which isn't checked by an editor before being published. How long it continues that big news organisations make their journos twit before the next big fad comes along?

The problem as always with using publicly generated internet sources like Blogs, Wikipedia and now Twitter is that they can be unreliable. A reputable news organisation relies on them at their peril...

The 2008 London Marathon on th Sky News website: http://journalismtoday.wordpress.com/2008/04/13/3/
(one picture actually had Madeleine Mcann in it!)

The death of Ronnie Hazelhurst:
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2007/10/03/wikipedia_obituary_cut_and_paste/
This particually had the potential to become self-fulfilling because it's mention in a newspaper could be then treated as a verifiable source by Wikipedia

Well it turns out to be right about Natasha Richardson.

I heard about the fire first through Matthew Horne on Twitter. People promptly started tweeting their comments and pics with #londonfire so relevant tweets could be found easily.

With Twitter, you get comment, fast.

But media outlets need to be more cautious. If they start making mistakes and become inaccurate in their haste to compete, who's gonna subscribe to them?

It's important that Twitter and news media work together, but at the same time appreciate their different roles.

I signed up to Twitter in January (link in signature) and have found it very interesting. The ability to engage with a wide range of people, famous and non-famous, is enjoyable and informing.

Look what happened when somebody falsely wrote that Apple owner Steve Jobs had a heart attack and posted it on the CNN's website - despite a disclaimer saying that it was citizens reporting, shares still tumbled!

I think that organisations such as the BBC should still wait for officials to confirm stories (ie, London bombings) as it would damage its reputation to report on what twitter says if it turned out to be wrong.

Absolutely agree. Reporting the death of Jobs without seeing it on any official news wires is just insanity.

Twitter comments, pics, can however be used effectively to enhance coverage of a story, but wires not Twitter should be the source of fact .

This is true to a certain extent, but then once more Twitter is changing the news landscape when it comes to "wires".

https://twitter.com/BreakingNewsOn

I would strongly suggest anyone who uses twitter to follow BNO news- a twitter news wire. It has a staggering ability to aggregate multiple news sources to bring ridiculous quick news updates, purely concentrating on breaking news from across the globe. And because it's on Twitter, it is simply producing a 140 character maximum summary of the breaking news, rather than the more detailed "copy" that the likes of Reuters, PA, AFP etc. produce for subscribers.

You will hear of major stories that simply won't make the BBC or Sky's news agenda. But you will read nothing of the stories that the BBC or Sky are leading with- because when they're on the TV, they're no longer breaking.

It's probably as close as someone can get to the kind of news wires used by major broadcasters (but hey obviously pay heavy subscriptions).

Interestingly, BNO is now developing a business model based on becoming a subscription news wire outside of the Twitter environment.

The other interesting question is whether, in the event of Twitter becoming ubiquitous, a news channel could ever use Twitter as a qualified source (as in the CNN example above).

If there is sufficient audience understanding of the potential limitations, is it better to let the viewer decide? It's probably not the best way of reporting deaths (this is the Wikipedia effect of it being simply too much "fun" to kill someone online), but what about other major news stories that are "trending" and thus being mentioned by hundreds or thousands of people simultaneously?

I have to agree with you - having a journo in place to quality control what is posted in this way is a good compromise between speed and accuracy.

Just to once more highlight the speed of Twitter. In the last 30 minutes the following stories have broken on "BreakingNewsOn"

Large eruption of Redboubt Volcano (Alaska)
Large fire at Mariott Hotel in central New York
Hostage stand off situation at a hospital in North Carolina
Earthquake in Peru

Now none of these stories are being covered by the BBC or Sky as things stand now. It may be that some of these would never be deemed worthy of interest to UK residents.

However, given the repetitive nature of a lot of the news cycle on 24 hour channels, wouldn't you like to hear about these stories? Especially when (in the case of the BBC) there is the potential to connect with a network of correspondents near to where these events are occurring.