dagblog - Comments for "Bin Laden is Dead. Twitter scooped Everyone."

Wow, so I wonder what'll come

Ramona — Tue, 03 May 2011 02:07:11 +0000

In reply to Speak of the devil. The Gray

Wow, so I wonder what'll come fast on Twitter and Facebook's heels? Embedded chips and brain scans?

Your last line. . .priceless.

What a sad day it'll be when

Ramona — Tue, 03 May 2011 02:03:39 +0000

In reply to I didn't mean to discount the

What a sad day it'll be when newspapers die out and we're forced to get all of our news and features via the internet. I love reading newspapers. I love turning paper pages and scanning the stories to see if there is something that I might not think I want to read but it turns out I actually do.

With all the complaints about the NYT wouldn't it be missed if it were no longer on newsstands? How many pages in a daily paper? How many pieces do you read that you wouldn't have read if they hadn't been right there in front of you? I think that's what HuffPo is attempting--those happy, unexpected discoveries--but really, it's nowhere near the same. It's too easy to lose your place on the internet. With a newspaper you can fold it to your spot and set it aside for days and then go back to it, knowing it's right there waiting, right where you left it.

I hate that newspapers are dying. I read a lot of newspaper content online, but I always consider it second-best to the real thing. A necessary compromise, but it makes me complicit, doesn't it?

Speak of the devil. The Gray

Michael Wolraich — Tue, 03 May 2011 01:44:56 +0000

In reply to Three of my favorite pieces

Speak of the devil. The Gray Lady has just weighed in on the Tweetification of the Bin Laden news--with characteristic condescension:

Thanks to Twitter and Facebook, some CNN watchers had already heard the news. Unconfirmed reports — that turned out to be true — of Osama bin Laden’s demise circulated widely on social media for about 20 minutes before the anchors of the major broadcast and cable networks reported news of the raid at 10:45 p.m., about an hour before Mr. Obama’s address from the White House.

It was another example of how social media and traditional media deal with the same news in different ways and at different speeds. Just as CNN once challenged newspapers and evening newscasts with a constant stream of images from the Persian Gulf war, Twitter and Facebook have become early warning systems for breaking news — albeit not always reliable ones.

I love the "that turned out to be true" caveat. Implication: The next time Twitter scoops Bin Laden's death, it will inevitably turn out to be greatly exaggerated.

PS I was alerted to this article on Twitter.

Three of my favorite pieces

artappraiser — Tue, 03 May 2011 01:37:10 +0000

In reply to Interesting. I think that the

Three of my favorite pieces on the whole "breaking!" and scoop compettion and mob feeding frenzy thingies:

What to Do When News Grows Old Before Its Time
By JACK ROSENTHAL Published: August 08, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/08/weekinreview/08bott.html

Walden at 150: What Would Thoreau Think of the 24-Hour News Cycle?
By ADAM COHEN Published: August 22, 2004

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/08/22/opinion/22sun3.html

Speed and Credibility
By ARTHUR S. BRISBANE Published: January 29, 2011

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/30/opinion/30pubed.html

For extra credit , an Illustration, back when Twitter used to be called "on the wire" or "police radio":

I didn't mean to discount the

Michael Wolraich — Tue, 03 May 2011 00:37:15 +0000

In reply to Ordinarily I would agree

I didn't mean to discount the excitement of the immediacy. I was just speculating that the real impact of social media is not to be measured in the speed with which we get information but in the type of information that we get.

What's trending on Twitter isn't important because you should be watching the trends but because those trends reflect what you and everyone else are reading. In the old days, news organizations succeeded by attracting loyal subscribers. The Times is old school. While it may take advantage of Twitter, it's focused on protecting its brand as a Serious Newspaper and building its subscriber base. By contrast, HuffPo aggressively tailors its content to appeal to sharing networks and search engines.

Now if Twitter and Facebook become the primary jumping off points for news--and it's moving in that direction--the HuffPo model wins, and the Times' model loses. That means that the news we get will become more partisan and sensationalistic but also more diverse and personally relevant.

Ordinarily I would agree

Ramona — Mon, 02 May 2011 21:58:06 +0000

In reply to Interesting. I think that the

Ordinarily I would agree about the immediacy of the news. The zeal to "get it first" doesn't necessarily mean they've gotten it best. Or even right. But last night when we heard that Obama was going to make an announcement at 10:30 on a Sunday night, there was no doubt it was going to be something big. It was fascinating and--okay--exhilarating-- to be right in the middle of it. It was closer to midnight before Obama finally sat before the cameras and confirmed that bin Laden had been killed. We went from one lone Tweet saying a reliable source said bin Laden was dead to how it happened and where it happened, so that by the time Obama appeared his announcement was anticlimactic.

But beyond that, what I find on Twitter that I don't find anywhere else is, surprisingly, a depth to unfolding stories. Everybody seems to know somebody who know somebody else who got it from the horse's mouth. In that sense, the immediacy and intimacy is hard to ignore. But I can't see subsituting Twitter for real news sources. What it does best after the chatter is to point us to available sources. It's a great site, a unique site, but it's not the ultimate everything.

I don't pay much attention to "trending" stories. NYT is engaging in sour grapes. I'm guessing Twitter helps the NYT more than it hurts. If they publish a good story it'll get Tweeted plenty.

Interesting. I think that the

Michael Wolraich — Mon, 02 May 2011 20:34:37 +0000

In reply to Bin Laden is Dead. Twitter scooped Everyone.

Interesting. I think that the immediacy of news is not consequential in and of itself. A five-minute scoop doesn't mean much (unless you're a day trader). But because Twitter is such a great mechanism for delivering immediate news, more and more people are getting their news that way, which is consequently changing the nature of the news business before our eyes.

To capture an audience, news sites now have to design their stories to attract tweets. That means that they have to get them out fast, of course, but it also means that they have to choose their stories and headline them in such a way as to go viral. Much as we bemoan the celebrity gossip at HuffPo, the site is very good at the viral game--in contrast with the NYT, whose editor-in-chief recently complained, "Some once-serious news outlets give pride of place not to stories they think important but to stories that are "trending" on Twitter--the 'American Idol'-ization of news."

I watched the shots at some

Richard Day — Mon, 02 May 2011 17:26:15 +0000

In reply to Bin Laden is Dead. Twitter scooped Everyone.

I watched the shots at some baseball game, everybody got the news on their phones!

Like a ripple throughout the crowd.

Strange days!