Once upon a time, information gathering and dissemination was the work of people who professionally practised it, i.e. the journalists. No longer, today; since the tools are very much available to the common people.
Democratization of mass media mechanism may have its good side, but definitely not without pitfalls. A good example of the latter was the way the rumour about Jyoti Basu’s death spread on twitter this afternoon. Like email forwards and sms forwards, this too got mindlessly retweeted. The extent of traffic could be gauged from the fact that Jyoti Basu was a trending topic on twitter for a while.
Things got so bad that someone even went on to make an entry on Basu’s page on Wikipedia, based on the unconfirmed news. To prevent any further damage, editors had to sort of partially disable the editing option.
Interestingly, now it was the non-journalists who jumped the gun with “breaking news”, and it was they who got it all wrong! I hope they have become wiser now, and will pardon, when next time round journalists slip.
On twitter, saner people contained the damage by rubbishing the rumour and putting out an appeal not to retweet the unconfirmed news about Basu’s health. In fact, many were retweeting the twitter feed of institutional media organizations like NDTV, Hindustan Times, The Times of India etc to state clearly that Basu was very much around, though in a critical condition.
It was a good sign that many people were turning to conventional media organizations for the actual status of Basu’s health. This in a way indicated the continued faith people have in the credibility of institutional media organizations.
Yeah, its very easy to mislead millions as demonstrated by that one nitwit today on Twitter.
But not so fast, don’t you forget the day when Asianet ‘killed’ Karunakaran! 😛 Conventional mediafolks are pros, as you said, and when they mess up things it no joke. You think twice before swallowing a rookie tweet like the Basu one today, unless it is accompanied by a verifiable link to a media-story.
The jobs of journalists is even more demanding now,I presume. News gathering n dissipation has become competitive unlike days of yore when we swallowed what the media belted out.Augurs well for discerning people.
Regards,
Ravi
Just because the poor man is 95, everyone has concluded that will not survive his ill health and rushed to claim “you heard it first here.” Seekers of cheap thrills. Really cheap. (via email)
I am on twitter all day and did not hear this rumor, perhaps i’m not following idiots on twitter and no legit site ever spread this rumor yesterday or today!…
Also in defense of twitter, not that it needs one, it is a “social networking site” a “micro blog” if you will. It is not a news site but there are legitimate news sites that also tweet their news like Headlines India or CNN or NDTV or Al Jazeera, the list is long. However, twitter (and indeed the internet as a whole) has a lot of idiots on it tweeting complete nonsense and trivia, making bad and good jokes, pulling people’s legs and posting porn.
One chooses to either follow someone or not, no one is forced to. Therefore someone to take news feed from non news organization on twitter is just asking for trouble. Common sense says, verify the story from any other credible source. Just jumping to conclusion from one idiot who decides to float a rumor, that too on twitter, is just not using common sense… (via email)
Great point, Anup.
Internet is changing our lives. But is it for the good or bad is totally our choice. Twitter for ex is a medium for a lot of them to share absolute non sense. Or it could be something constructive as of doing business online. Like Anup said, it’s who we chose to follow on a social networking site or what we choose to read online.
If you look at it, science hasn’t changed much.. ain’t this the same as the .. the knife, the doctor n the murderer story !! (via email)
You make a very good point Pradeep. Ridiculous to say RIP when someone is still breathing. But even when such rumours spread online, it is not difficult to find the truth if one wants to. The websites of TOI, HT etc are just one click away.
I have a twitter account but I rarely log in. Just went in and looked for Jyoti Basu. Looks like the rumours have died by now. The current tweet is he’s still in a critical condition. I believe that’s true.
Though there are pitfalls in social networking websites, I am grateful for the online communication sources. Just last week a pre-degree classmate of mine ‘found’ me in Orkut. She and I were close friends who lost touch after those two years in college. Years later, we are in touch and it feels wonderful. (via Multiply)
Well..I didn’t know abt this rumor until nw..
The advent of electronic media n e-networking sites has stripped journalists from their enviable position of knowing all n knowing 1st..
At the cost of inviting glares from all my jurno friends, let me also also say the common mortals too r enjoying the fun nw…. who cares abt the veracity of the news..its mostly abt sensationalism..instant gratification… mirroring our fast paced life.. hmmm..
Osty Lab
Well..I didn’t know abt this rumor until nw..
The advent of electronic media n e-networking sites has stripped journalists from their enviable position of knowing all n knowing 1st..
At the cost of inviting glares from all my jurno friends, let me also also say the common mortals too r enjoying the fun nw..who cares abt the veracity of the news..
Its mostly abt sensationalism..instant gratification… mirroring our fast paced life.. hmmm.. (via Facebook)
Interesting. Yes the social journalism is kind of risky when people involved are not really aware of what they are writing. This has the same perils of an immature democracy.
I think for the short term these channels are best served as inputs for the institutional journalism to vet and screen before making it “authentic”. (via Facebook)
At the risk of sounding blase and 100% politically incorrect, I must say am surprised about these rumours about the old war-horse generated so much interest. May be people are hoping for a holiday! I had not heard of these rumours myself. (via Facebook)
Thanks, I guess the subject line of this mail was wrong.. it said “twitter Vs conventional media” & being an avid tweet I can safely conclude that these two are very different and in no way twitter is trying to compete with mainstream media and in fact mainstream/conventional media uses twitter to interact with new generation “tweeple” to get their message across. Thats the first flaw in this when one starts comparing apples to oranges….
[via Email on Jan 8]
Today, when that devastating Quake hit Haiti, it was thousands of people on twitter who networked and had real time info on events on the ground.
Even your so called International mainstream media used pictures from Twitter and video from YouTube. Just now, on your 0930AM Indian time (lunchtime for me in Singapore) I heard that NDTV anchor Gargi call Haiti a Pacific Island Nation!
So much for lack of General Knowledge from “conventional” media.
When one idiot on twitter comes up with a rumor on twitter about Jyoti Basu, it becomes a topic for discussion but it does not make a topic even if “conventional” media makes huge mistakes in their reporting and when conventional media makes use of platforms like Twitter to help their reporting!
Write something positive instead of constant twitter and Facebook criticism of some people who use FB and twitter for frivolous reasons. As for Indian conventional media, its just a bunch of stuttering anchors who are dolled up to face the camera with not an iota of GK!
[via email on Jan 13]
Wish more people were as discerning as you are Anup..
Our lives are being influenced to a very large extent by the media..the choices we make.. be it food.. clothes.. places.. ideas etc are more based on media reports than the reality. n the irresponsibility of the india media just dosnt seem to be helping here.
It shocks me the controversy the media creates around the minister Shashi Tharoor, infact he is the only politician I have met all my life
http://www.royalmysorewalks.com/blog/2009/11/08/i-missed-my-ride-to-mysore-with-mr-tharoor/
and one can so relate to him because is normal like the rest of us. He uses twitter to get across to people.. well that for me is a important part of democracy.. a leader giving accounts of his work and be answerable..
A GREAT thing for Indian Politics. Dont we deserve to know what the other politician are upto too? but the conventional media is always up in arms against this man coz he bypasses them to get to people..
i just hope these cronies dun end up winning the battle so tht we lose a politician on whom we can pin our hopes on..
Another point you made Anup, people and more so our Media always focuses on the negatives..the negatives always makes news.. and thts the direction our society has begun to think too…
I remember Mr Kalam in an article saying that when he was in Israel there is so much violence happening with all the bomb blasts.. but to his surprise the papers next day in the front page had articles about the positive news..
and the bomb blasts found a place only in the later pages.. Mr Kalam expresses shock on our indian media too.. As a society its about how we look at things..
just take the latest news.. Devegowda’s episode.. its so obvious tht it was a publicity stunt.. and the media fuels the fire !!
one can go on n on.. I really wish we have more Anups. people who can think for themselves and not be the herd !!
[via email on Jan 13]
what the media will never bring out on twitter or on the man >> http://blog.abesh.net/2010/01/08/my-apostille-woes-and-shashi-tharoor/
[via email on Jan 13]
I agreee that media blows things out of proportion. Channels endlessly repeat the most insignificant incidents in video clips ad nauseum. As for their general knowledge, and awareness, the less said the better.
Kindly stop making a big noise out of pitfalls of social media because a) rumor exist as a basic form of human communication – be it in your office cafeteria or be it in the power corridors as long as civilization existed..it may spread faster due to technology today..but so does conventional news..so at the end they balance up to be the usual zero-sum game b) the so called institutional media hushes up a lot of genuine news (example 13 workers died at a construction site of the Prestige real estate group last year in Bangalore – the group using its sheer PR power swamped all local media from publishing it) ..had it not for twitter we wouldn’t have known..and today two RTI appeals has already been filed – net net stop being high-brow..all power in the hand of people are initially exploited a bit..they will get right after a couple of iteration as medium-maturity creeps in..