Underestimating the Internet is a fools game. Since its invention it has grown from a military tool to a social networking phenomenon where anything goes and has in recent times become an important force in Journalism. From where I'm standing (well sitting at the moment) I believe Twitter to be the most important tool in my Journalistic toolbox. It alerts me to the breaking news, updates me with the latest developments and connects me with like minded people. You only need to look back through my blog posts to see the amount of times I've been able to take a story from Twitter and turn it into a blog.
Recently though I was struck by how important Twitter became in the events surrounding Hosni Mubarak's eventual resignation in Egypt. In the early days of the the revolution, Internet traffic was interrupted and there were reports of disruption to Twitter, but of course there were already some journalists out there, able to report using their phones, connecting them to the Internet and therefore the world. The Twitter hash tag #Jan25 became the place to look for news concerning Egypt and soon reports were flooding in, all with eyewitness accounts built up from Tweets. Even today I saw a call from one journalist for eyewitnesses on Twitter of the problems (possibly an understatement) in Libya.
The Internet. Just another tool in journalism as we strive to find the truth.
This blog was inspired by a piece in The Observer with the link below:
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2011/feb/20/what-effect-internet-on-journalism
P.S. I know it says Guardian but if you weren't already aware that The Observer is essentially The Guardian on Sunday then you need to do a bit more research.
No comments:
Post a Comment