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Mainstream Media Losing Its Edge In Breaking News

Posted by Craig Kanalley | Posted in Commentary | Posted on 19-07-2009

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It doesn’t take much to see where news is breaking these days.

In the latest instances of a growing trend, a shooting in Washington, D.C. Wednesday, and explosions in Jakarta Friday were reported on Twitter by several accounts more than 15 minutes before traditional media reports.

Not only is mainstream media losing its edge, but the “breaking news” phenomenon in general is losing its value, according to Frédéric Filloux of Monday Note.

Filloux writes:

Therefore, the equation becomes clear-cut: either the Mainstream Media (MSM) recapture breaking news by twittering, or microblogging in some fashion, or the crowd will take care of business. Examples abound. As the internet pundit Clay Shirky recalls it in this TED presentation, the recent (last May) earthquake in China was widely reported by inhabitants using their cell phone for taking pictures, video and sending tweets. “The BBC got their first wind of the Chinese quake from Twitter, says Shirky. Twitter announced the quake several minutes before the US Geological Survey had anything online. The last time China had a quake, it took officials three months to admit it had happened”.

In other words, despite the immediacy of the 24/7 news cycle, traditional outlets are being trumped by a real-time Web — Twitter users reporting from the scene, Web sites that aren’t afraid to run on a single source, and blogs that may have questionable ethics yet break news anyway.

Exclusives are hard to come by, and when someone does break news, it’s usually seconds or minutes before the next outlet reports it (if Twitter hasn’t already). That means that MSM outlets are losing the edge on breaking news they’ve held for so long.

Without quick adaptation, they may lose viewers and readers altogether, who will go elsewhere for their breaking news fix. And that could be a problem.

  • Cat
    What is clear is that newspapers--at least in their print editions--have got to get out of the "breaking news" business, what with Twitter scooping them left and right. (Some newspapers are using Twitter to break news, too, yes, but many of these still don't understand how to use Twitter effectively; notice how so many of them send out 3-4 tweets at a time, as if were something you did once a day to get out of the way.) More on this: http://twurl.cc/1bo8
  • ckanal
    That's a pretty bold statement. I'm not sure newspapers should get out of breaking news entirely, but I'm glad you added the "print" disclaimer - I agree with that. Personally, I think newspapers in print should focus more on analysis, useful illustrations/data, and other types of content for print editions rather than breaking news. But breaking news online, IMO, is a neccessity for any newspaper.

    Thanks for sending this and sharing the link - interesting.
  • The news "broken" on Twitter is really no different from someone running down the street saying, "Guess what I just saw" or a trucker getting on his CB radio to tell his convoy about an accident up ahead. These are means of communicating out an eyewitness account. Twitter adds an eavesdropping element that's available to everyone, but one that comes naturally to journalists. http://tr.im/txWV
  • ckanal
    Interesting post, thanks for sharing it - very well written. Agreed that it is not Twitter itself, but rather people who break the news...but yes, it provides the medium to every day people that makes it so easy to publish and "break news" themselves.
  • Twitter users, some with less than 20 followers, constantly post information that might be breaking news for a "hyperlocal"or niche audience. The journalists, citizen or mainstream, who use the right tools to detect and verify those tweets, and then share it with their followers and readers will "(re)capture breaking news."
  • ckanal
    Good summary - very well said.
  • Nicole
    I wouldn't say that mainstream media is losing its edge, necessarily; if anything, CERTAIN publications/organizations are managing to keep an edge because they're simply using new outlets to break the news.

    Many newspapers (and other mainstream outlets) are breaking news on Twitter before they post it on their own Web sites (for example, Cronkite's death was reported by the NYT on Twitter just before it was reported on their Web site). This doesn't mean that the NYT, a mainstream outlet, is losing its edge because the news was on Twitter before NYT Online; it just means they posted the news as quickly as possible.

    Also, the first reports of any major news event might show up on Twitter from some random person before they show up on the account or Web site of an "established" journalist/paper. These might be the first eyewitness accounts of an incident that are published, but this doesn't mean they are the first reliable reports of an incident. Social media tools are fantastic because they allow different perspectives to shine through. However, any individual perspective is only a piece of the story, and might not even be accurate, at that. I maintain that we still need "traditional" journalists and publications (in whatever incarnation). And these are often the first places you get a complete, reliable account of an event.

    To sum up, Twitter and other tools add a useful aspect to reporting, and they give publications a new way to compete and to break news faster. But a feed from a random person, who just happens to be at the scene of an event, should not be looked upon the same way as the feed of a professional journalist who is reporting on the same event.
  • ckanal
    Interesting. Obviously there are reliability issues, but I think the main point here was that MSM used to break all the news and they're not anymore.

    Like that China earthquake example in the post, Twitter reported that far quicker than traditional media. Not sure this happened in that example specifically, but sometimes, so many people are tweeting about something that it jumps up on Twitter Trends before media reports it --- so people find out on Twitter first about the earthquake.

    Certainly there's a need for verification and reliable reports, but maybe news outlets should focus more on that -- and gatekeeping and analysis -- rather than "breaking news" themselves?
  • Nicole
    I think saying that people are finding out about things on Twitter (and other social sites) first, especially due to trending topics, is fair. I guess it's a question of how far you are willing to go to be informed. Some people might just sit there and read all the tweets that pop up. But as soon as I see a tweet that something has happened, I turn around and go to CNN or the NYT, etc, to read the sourced, complete report on the incident.

    Any person can be in the middle of an earthquake and tweet "wtf, my house is shaking." But I'm going to look elsewhere to get that full report on how many people died, what buildings came down, how long cleanup will take, etc.

    Also, I think when you're trying to determine "who broke this news," the intent of the people sharing the news ought to be considered. That person who tweeted "my house is shaking" probably didn't post that with a conscious thought that "this event is happening, let me share the news in hopes of informing people." The majority of individuals on Twitter are there for personal reasons, so friends can follow them, as a personal diary, etc. On the other hand, most journalists are there for the express purpose of breaking the news faster or in different ways. When they tweet, it's with a conscious thought that "something has happened, let me inform people, let me get this up as quickly as possible."

    While the first comments or accounts of an incident may show up on Twitter first, I don't think it's a fair statement to say that the first reliable and journalist accounts of an incident no longer come from the mainstream media.
  • ckanal
    Maybe so, but there are reliable accounts from everyday people too now, as well as from blogs and other Web sites. And that's the issue raised. MSM is not breaking news alone anymore.

    I think the bigger question is -- does that even matter? It may not! And I completely agree, you have to go to the traditional, longer-formed report to get the details. Obviously. It's not a traditional vs. new media issue --- it's a fundamental change in how information is distributed, and anyone can "break news" now.
  • Errrr ... how on earth can MSM be faster than twittering eye witnesses?
  • ckanal
    I think part of Filloux's argument is to do more twittering themselves? They may not break every story, but they'll surely break others and keep an "edge" in that field.
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