A few weeks ago we saw the news of Michael Jackson’s death disseminated largely via Twitter users and social media sites before Google and the mainstream news media got hold of the story.
Then yesterday we had Daniel Tumiwa breaking the story of the Jakarta bombings from the scene via Twitter and his Blackberry. Pictures of the atrocity appeared on Twitpic shortly afterwards.
It is hard to believe that Twitter’s founder would ever have imagined that its service would be used for frontline reporting of breaking news of world terrorism, rather than, “should I have a bagel or doughnut for breakfast?”.
Social media has come a long way already but are there any limits to what it can do in the future?
Will Twitter users replace the majority of professional journalists ultimately? What is the point of a hack turning up to a crime scene, press card in hand if the news has been tweeted and posted on Facebook and pictures have been taken and posted to Twitpic?
Analysis and investigation of the news stories maybe the answer for journalists but once the story has been broken on social media sites there are plenty of intelligent and articulate bloggers on the Internet who can provide the background to any story.
When the Web 2.0 Internet gets hold of the information from the social media sites there are also millions of people online able to provide immediate analysis and input expert background knowledge into a story rather than a handful of journalists in a newsroom.
Have journalists any real defence against an army of citizen news gatherers or a horde of knowledgeable bloggers?
What are your thoughts?
