When the news of Osama bin Laden's death broke Sunday night, people found out about is from an array of different mediums.  According to an Associated Press report, one soldier overseas in Afghanistan heard the news via Facebook and a TV producer learned of the news from comedian Kathy Griffin's Twitter.  Others found out from newspaper email notifications or even on a smart phone away from home.  To contrast, when news of the Sept. 11, 2001 attacks began to spread, it wasn't nearly as fast; these sources were not even options at the time.  As an individual who was on Twitter myself at the time that it was announced President Obama would be speaking on an "unannounced" topic (and then a National Security topic and then eventually speculation and confirmation that he would be announcing bin Laden's death) it was phenomenal to suddenly see all the meaningless, trivial tweets taken over by the whole Twitter community responding to this new issue.

The story broke on Twitter and was carried through Twitter and ultimately analyzed on Twitter.  Through Twitter does not actually have stories on its site - it instead links you to the full text - the 140-character cap is sufficient to break news.  Keith Urbahn, chief of staff to Defense Sec. Robert Gates, is responsible for posting the tweet that led to the speculations and ultimately (though unintentionally, broke the story).  The reactions via Twitter kept pouring in over night and throughout Monday and beyond.  Subscribers could read comments from politicians, comedians, celebrities, "regular" people, journalists, news sources, and more - even the "President" himself (well, his office).  The response on Facebook was very similar.  Experiencing this breaking news via these social sites was quite exciting and unlike anything I've been a part of before.

Information for this post also came from a report by The Washington Post and Entertainment Weekly.  

Hot Damn Twitter

Last night the twitter-sphere was the perfect example of the constant news cycle, as this NYT media decoder blog post shows. Just after 11:30pm, Obama confirmed the death of al-Qaida’s chief, Osama bin Laden. Yet, at around 9:45 the White House communications director had announced on twitter that Obama was going to be making an special speech. Almost immediately, people began to speculate what the announcement would be about. Just before 10:30, the first “official” tweet with this information read “so I’m told by a reputable person they have killed Osama Bin Laden. Hot damn.” With this, government officials started giving network news outlets anonymous information almost an hour before the President was able to make his own speech on the death.
In class we talked about how news organization was able to guess Kennedy’s plans naval plans in reaction to the Cuban Missile Crisis but was able to quell reporters and make an official announcement himself. With social media cites, like Twitter, it becomes easier for the media to get in contact with government officials or be in touch with each other about possible clues. Of course, a lot of these tweets were coming from unofficial sources or were just speculation. It seems like this was one of the first times the media was actually steps ahead of the President. What does this mean for the future of special presidential announcements?

When trivial information meets hard news

Sohaib Athar’s followers were following Osama Bin Laden without even knowing it. This Pakistani computer specialist noticed helicopters flying over his city and thought the event was rare enough to be tweeted about. An hour later, he added that since Taliban do not have helicopters and that they were not Pakistani, something was definitely going on. And we all now know that a special operation was taking place in his town.

This story, reported by CNN among others, shows how citizens can really be effective in gathering information and broadcasting news in real time. But it already raises the question of the danger of this broadcasting. Some information should remain unknown until it is time to unveil them. It is the case I think for military or police operations. The traditional media are not always hushing up those stories because they are corrupted, it is also a matter of security.

Once again, it shows that the total freedom of the internet has it good and bad sides. And even if no one really has the power to control everything on the web, the issue of the internet governance should be discussed by all the world political, economical, and “moral” leaders.

Royal Wedding Watch: No Tweeting Allowed

Just to continue with the Royal Wedding's presence in the Twitterworld, I felt a brief update was necessary.  While correspondents from all the major news conglomerates will be outside the gates tweeting as fast as their fingers can move.  But as for those lucky enough to score an invitation, don't expect any activity on their Twitter accounts.  Although Scotland Yard has clarified that the rumored cell-signal blocking device will not be used, cell phones have still been banned from the ceremony.

Information came from a Washington Post report. 

Royal Wedding Watch: The Naysayers

#RoyalWedding, #rw11, #rw2011, #proudtobebritsh and more.  All are hash tags created as a result of the wedding between Kate and William that will take place on April 29.  And some of them have started trending long before the nuptials are set to take place.  But one does not fit with the rest: #royalpain.  Earlier today, the Washington Post put out a message into the Tweetosphere asking for the underrepresented portion of the community to respond.

While it seems as though The WP was looking for genuine opinions of disapproval for the Wedding (and they did get a handful of those) what they got more was a slap on the hands.  People criticized them, and other news sites, for devoting too much attention to the wedding when there are other, more pressing, issues at hand.      

Online options for the news allow for even the less than important news to be published.  And while it doesn't take up print space, it is consuming time of reporters.  And people are taking notice and voicing their opinions on this new approach to reporting and what gets reported.  

A giant scale Lego replica of the royal ceremony? Seriously? (AFP/GETTY IMAGES)

Drowning in Social Media: Filtering the Social Web to get the News You Need

In today's world of new media, where a person can get news from the blogosphere, Twitter, Facebook, etc. people can easily feel as though they're drowning in too much information. The New York Times published an article explaining that as a result of that feeling, there is now a need to filter all of this information to make it easier for people to get their daily dose of news.

The article cites the commercial jet landing in the Hudson River and the uprisings in Egypt as examples of regular people--not reporters--who are breaking news by uploading Twitter posts, photos, and videos to the Web. As a result, there is now a huge surplus of information coming in from all directions. How are people supposed to sift through the noise? One of the senior strategists at NPR explains, “There’s a big need for tools that allow people to collect bits of social media context and organize them in some fashion.”

A Web start-up called Storify aims to help journalists and others collect and filter all of this information. "Using the Storify Web site, people can find and piece together publicly available content from Twitter, Flickr, Facebook, YouTube, and other sites. They can also add text and embed the resulting collages of content on their own sites." Storify is one of many Web start-ups working towards this goal so that journalists can sift through all of the information and publish the most relevant items.

One of the founders of Storify explains, "Even though journalists may not be the first on the scene, they select the most reliable sources, digest loads of information and provide context for events. We have so many real-time streams now, we’re all drowning. So the idea of Storify is to pick out the most important pieces, amplify them and give them context."

Furthermore, it is interesting to consider the fact that the news media no longer has exclusivity on sharing and publishing information. If the average Joe breaks a story on his Twitter and then immediately posts videos of the event on his YouTube, will the New York Times' coverage really be breaking news anymore? What is the difference between a traditional news source, like the New York Times, covering a story and a well-informed citizen covering the story through his own social media?

Does the influence of technology mean that the 21st-century role of the news media will be based less on investigating and reporting, and more on sifting and organizing? Will reporters now rely more on average people to provide information, and on their own professional judgment to choose which stories are newsworthy? Or can traditional news media still exist with new social media providing a complementary set of news? Will the increased power of the people exacerbate the 24-hour news cycle, or will the laypeople's influence force the news media to dig deeper into the issues that people truly care about?

Twitter (as used by Susan Orlean)

Like many others I have some concerns about Twitter and its impact on how people flesh out ideas, particularly when only 140 characters are allowed. In a recent post on PBS's MediaShift website Simon Owens discusses how New Yorker writer, Susan Orlean, uses Twitter. Orlean discusses how when she first got a Twitter account she didn't really understand the purpose of it, but after a few years she figured out how to use the platform to develop a type of back-and-forth with her readers. She describes it as an "ongoing Q&A session." It provided her with a mechanism for staying in contact with readers between New Yorker pieces and while working on books. Before Twitter she could go months without publishing anything, however Twitter allows her to stay in contact with the world and keep them up-to-date on her work. Perhaps Twitter can allow for dialogue in a way that is more purposeful than 140 characters may lead one to believe. However, my guess is that those who engage and follow Orlean, and Orlean herself, are likely to find ways to engage in meaningful dialogue with or without Twitter. This platform just happens to be the current forum for exchange. Nevertheless, any mechanism for allowing journalists and writers to connect with readers and introduce them to their work must serve some greater purpose.