This Saturday evening, there was a report of a car bomb in Times Square in Manhattan. The report I saw first on this story was from Twitter, of course. The post on Twitter included a criticism of traditional media outlets for not covering the story right away. The fact is, Twitter can just cover a story quicker than any other outlet. It's instantaneous.
I think news organizations are far too set in their ways to be able to adapt to the new media tools we have at the moment. They have their set schedule, especially on the weekend when there is fewer staff on hand. They are going to stick to that schedule unless, of course, a significant breaking story happens. But the broadcast side of these organizations aren't yet prepared for the constant news (and sometimes breaking news) stream on Twitter, in my opinion.
There usually aren't too many critical breaking news stories that happen on Saturday evenings, but news is certainly on no kind of schedule. Organizations must be aware of this and have staff on hand at all times to break in at important times like this. It's critical, especially in a large population area like Manhattan, that people have information as quickly as possible. Organizations must be able to compete with Twitter and be able to confirm the real story.
Sunday, May 2, 2010
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Reporting on Podcasts
KOMU caught some heat this week for reporting on an ESPN "Insider" podcast that stated the University of Missouri was going to join the Big Ten Conference. I really think the report was solid, although I would have added to the story on KOMU.com that the source was the podcast. I also still haven't been able to listen to the sourced podcast to confirm what was said because it requires an ESPN subscription.
But today, I checked rockmnation.com again, a site that disputed KOMU's report on Thursday. In this post, they cite a reader who apparently has knowledge of the podcast in the box under "Update 2." This reader reports that ESPN's Bruce Feldman did report that Missouri to the Big Ten is a "done deal." ESPN's Scott Van Pelt read an e-mail from Feldman which had these words, according to this reader.
So, it seems KOMU's report is accurate, as long as the reader of rockmnation.com is accurate. In this case, there is nothing wrong with KOMU's report. In fact, I think this should be investigated further and reported on in more detail.
Some other Web sites attacked KOMU for lack of transparency after this story, but I think the transparency did come out via Twitter. The @KOMUNews account linked to the Insider podcast, which was really all you needed to hear (as long as what was reported as said was said in that podcast).
As long as news organizations have this transparency, then there's no fault to them as long as what they are sourcing is factual. I like the initiative in using these new media tools (podcasts, Web sites) to report the news as long as they are done with the same journalistic principles applied to any other story.
But today, I checked rockmnation.com again, a site that disputed KOMU's report on Thursday. In this post, they cite a reader who apparently has knowledge of the podcast in the box under "Update 2." This reader reports that ESPN's Bruce Feldman did report that Missouri to the Big Ten is a "done deal." ESPN's Scott Van Pelt read an e-mail from Feldman which had these words, according to this reader.
So, it seems KOMU's report is accurate, as long as the reader of rockmnation.com is accurate. In this case, there is nothing wrong with KOMU's report. In fact, I think this should be investigated further and reported on in more detail.
Some other Web sites attacked KOMU for lack of transparency after this story, but I think the transparency did come out via Twitter. The @KOMUNews account linked to the Insider podcast, which was really all you needed to hear (as long as what was reported as said was said in that podcast).
As long as news organizations have this transparency, then there's no fault to them as long as what they are sourcing is factual. I like the initiative in using these new media tools (podcasts, Web sites) to report the news as long as they are done with the same journalistic principles applied to any other story.
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