Microblogs and the evolution of news events: Twitter and its role in reporting the terror in Mumbai

I started Microblogging or Twittering as a Twitter virgin about nine months ago. At the time I did not know what use Twitter would have for me. It started as a silly tool that I would have loved as a teenager. I put stupid random thoughts, often silly pseudo "clever " statements which on reflection only I would find funny or could understand. Soon after it became a tool to allow me to record what I was doing. This was its main use. I could tell I was in town on a given Sunday having a Chinese meal with the family. Even the silly comments could evoke memories of what I was thinking or doing on a particular date.

About three months in (yes I take a long time to learn) I found I could search twitter and started putting it to a more practical use. I found I could see traffic reports for my journeys to and from work. I could see what was going on in my area and I could even contribute information to like minded searchers. So as well as Twitter being a tool to reconstruct my life ( very handy on a drunken Saturday out with the lads to see which pubs I went to and what bus I got home) I found it could tell me why my bus home was stuck in traffic and I could tell people the traffic here is not moving.

When the Russians went into Georgia Twitter was a revelation. I got Twitters from people there on the ground. The news was fresh, first hand primary sources, lots of good links to keep me informed and up to date. Yes the same old stuff they taught you in history applied. Can you trust the source, who is writing it, how accurate or trustworthy is it. Given a modicum of intelligence I think it is safe to say that Twitter offered a very instructive picture of this conflict.

Events in Mumbai took this all to a much higher level. For a start I saw Mumbai trending on Twitter search a full two hours before it hit the main news channels. By the time it hit the BBC in any meaningful way I already knew as much if not more than their reporters. They were regurgitating reports that had been on twitter for an hour before. Twitter also pointed you to all the latest news wires as well as comments and thoughts from people on the ground.

Like the Georgian conflict I found the Tweets evolved over time. When the Mumbai terror started the Tweets were descriptive. Good facts, some rumours but mostly people around the event or involved. Very constructive and no more confused or unreliable than the main news agencies and a lot more up to date.

This first phase when the news first broke I found Twitter so much faster than the main news agencies like CNN and the BBC. Sure when the main stream media caught up I was fixed to the TV watching the pictures but still Twitter had the edge on events.

The second phase with Twitter seemed to be that once Mumbai was the top Twitter trend you got the unacceptable face of capitalism .Trawling Tweets that are nothing more than adverts for insurance companies or revolutionary neo-Marxist web sites. I was very impressed at the communal response to this which was to name and shame them and to isolate them.

While CNN and the BBC reported events in a "safe" not conformed, let's being in the experts way, Twitter a few hours after the event started to evolve its own home grown experts offering analysis. Not given the heavy restraints of a BBC culture of facts before emotions some Twitter thoughts were quite out there with the fairies.

Four hours in to the terror Twitter had the most up to date stories and lots of links to main news sites along with some very good citizens journalistic thoughts ( along with some very crass ones ) I found the fact that Mumbai fought for first place in the Twittering trends with American Thanksgiving instructive in humanity and its priorities.

The next phase of twitter I also found instructive. In some ways I was proud in others I was horrified. I was proud of the debates. Debates on how this could happen, on the role of the media. I shared the communal anger at the traditional press pushing cameras and microphones into the faces of victims. Twitter was accused of giving out too much information. At least on twitter there was a healthy debate on what people should be saying. I saw no such debate or condemnation on CNN when they gave away the location of a mother and child in a hotel full of bloodthirsty crazed terrorists!

The last phase I found ugly but very instructive. Facts started bring replaced by emotions and hijacked by political activists. We started seeing Tweets showing hate for Pakistan ( the feeling on the streets that one day later became a serious political reality and the focus of some serious expert media analysis) we also saw pure hate , Mosad plots! Indian governmental plots against Pakistan, Pakistan state involvement. Some very rude, reckless and irresponsible Tweets which on the whole drew condemnation or at least health debate from the Twitter community. Yes this side of citizens journalism is where the critics have there strongest arguments, anyone can irresponsibly write what they want and shape events to their own agenda. I would say that firstly that is an injustice to the intelligence of the Twittering community as a whole and secondly that this is nothing that the professional free press can not stand accused of. In the end the ugly reality of these thoughts are out there and post Mumbai terror they are a reality that needs to be recognised however crazy or irresponsible. Rather than give fuel to those with an agenda it enlightens us to the agenda that is evolving or was planed.

In the final analysis Twitter was the first place for the breaking news of the horrific events as they were unfolding in Mumbai. The strongest source of information for hours into the terror, the barometer of feeling, the only place I found that questioned their role and responsibilities in reporting and writing of the events and the only place you got a real sense of where the dark side of humanity was leading us. Wild Twitter may be at times but that is for those reading to make their own judgement and for the world to listen. People did this act against humanity. I can not begin to understand their motives or hate which allows them to do this. Reading Twitter shakes me form my comfort and makes me face their existence and also that the community as a majority as I do condemn them and do not understand their lack of intelligence or humanity

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