Mumbai and Social Media: Data is Not News

The flurry of tweets on Twitter following the terrible events that developed last Thursday in Mumbai have many New Media proponents once again promulgating the notion that Twitter and other social media services are not only changing the face of news media but are dramatically improving it.

One of my favorite New Media news hypesters, Michael Arrington, provided perhaps the best demonstration of the rift that exists between those who understand what news is all about and those who don’t.

In his post, “First Hand Accounts Of Terrorist Attacks In India On Twitter, Flickr,” Arrington writes:

Forget CNN, which so far has few details of the ongoing attacks in Mumbai, India that have left at least 80 dead (Update: they’re starting to catch up now). People are giving first hand reports of what they’re seeing directly on Twitter. Flickr is another important information resources - images are here.

Ironically, Arrington’s Twitter screenshot, seen below, includes a tweet sent to CNN’s Rick Sanchez asking the question, “Which terrorist group is it?” So much for forgetting CNN.

In peek at the activity on Twitter through Twitter search, it appears that the vast majority of tweets did not provide a whole lot of cogent information. Many simply relayed the facts that were being reported by mainstream news outlets in India and abroad and many simply provided the typical commentary seen online when such incidents occur. Some, amusingly, contained little more than praise for Twitter.

Noticeably absent: the first-hand accounts Arrington refers to. Perhaps Arrington is referring to First-Hand 2.0, which is commonly known as “second-hand” in the real world.

In his post, Arrington also noted that Mahalo and Wikipedia were constantly aggregating new information that was becoming available. Yet in the screenshots below, you can (ironically) see that both almost entirely linked out to mainstream news outlets.

In short, it’s quite clear that, if one actually delves into the all-important details, the situation in Mumbai was far less of a demonstration of the potential of “social media” as a journalistic medium than many are claiming.

Frankly, given that many people who extol the virtues of Twitter and other such services as platforms for superior news distribution don’t watch CNN, don’t listen to BBC Radio, etc., I would ask the following question: how would these people know that the news is “breaking first” on Twitter when many admittedly shun television and mainstream media?

I was at a friend’s house in California on Wednesday and when I browsed to CNN.com to check up on the news and saw the reports of the situation, we turned on CNN. In general, I found CNN’s coverage to be well done and it immediately accomplished what I hoped it would: it painted a picture of the unfolding situation. It told Mumbai’s story as it was being written.

No sorting through the hundreds of tweets being posted every few seconds trying to filter out the wheat from the chaff. No need to try to piece together the “news” 140 characters at a time. Just a handful of cool, calm reporters relaying to me what was known at the time.

Was the picture CNN painted a perfect portrait of the story that evolved after more facts were obtained? Of course not. No mainstream news outlet is perfect. Most are far from it. Facts are often hard to verify in real time in chaotic situations like this (especially when such chaos creates conflicting reports) and when it comes to certain topics, most mainstream news outlets have some sort of bias.

That said, I think a very clear distinction needs to be made between the reporting of news and the distribution of data. CNN does the former, Twitter and other such services do the latter.

With CNN’s help, within minutes of turning on the television, my friend and I had a general understanding of what was happening in Mumbai. I didn’t have to browse through hundreds of tweets of varying informational value trying to piece together what was happening. CNN took the data coming in from Mumbai, filtered it and synthesized a coherent story.

Individuals like Arrington don’t appear to understand the difference between CNN’s reporting and thousands of random tweets. To these individuals, a stream of raw data, much of which is useless and much of which cannot be immediately verified, is a story that has the same (if not greater) quality as a report generated by a mainstream news outlet whose paid staff aggregates data, filters it, analyzes it and attempts to check with sources before presenting it as “fact.”

In other words, to Arrington and folks like him, the noise is the signal.

Of course, Arrington isn’t completely clueless; he’s simply ideologically biased. In his post, he notes that “Twitter isn’t the place for solid facts yet - the situation is way too disorganized.”

Such a statement begs two questions. Isn’t news all about facts? Isn’t good reporting all about organizing facts into a coherent story that provides viewers and readers with a better understanding of the world around them?

As was demonstrated this past week when a mainstream news reporter took a satire I wrote as fact and included in an article, there’s nothing more important in journalism than getting the facts straight. When data and information are not verified, there are no facts. When there are no facts, there is no credibility. When there is no credibility, there is no trust. When there is no trust, “news” is of dubious value. When news is of dubious value, the institution of journalism fails to serve society.

Let’s make this clear: a 140 character tweet is not news. It is a piece of data. A photo on Flickr is not news in the absence of the journalistic process that tells the story behind the photo.

Unlike the New Media ideologues who dismiss the journalistic process altogether and who think editors and professionally-trained journalists are a dying breed, I won’t dismiss the potential usefulness of Twitter and Flickr. A tweet might contain valuable data that contributes to a story. A photo can help paint a picture of a newsworthy event that isn’t possible with words alone.

Yet a series of random tweets and a portfolio of random photos on Flickr, without the context that the journalistic process uncovers, are just that: a series of random tweets and a portfolio of random photos.

They have the potential to join the long list of ingredients that go into a the news but if you don’t put them together with the other ingredients and go through the process of “cooking” the meal, you don’t have anything that’s worth consuming.

At the end of the day, there’s no doubt that the Internet is impacting the news media. The Internet is potentially the most powerful platform for the aggregation of the data that becomes synthesized into news. It is available to millions upon millions of people and it has dramatically altered the way many of those people consume news media and contribute to it.

At the same time, however, given just how gullible so many individuals are, the Internet’s role in the news media is very much a double-edged sword. For instance, I have no doubt that if a Twitter user tweeted “explosions reported in bombay” during the chaos, there would be no shortage of other Twitter users who would take this “report” at face value and treat it as fact.

In fact, such misinformation/disinformation apparently did rear its head yesterday. Tom over at TomsTechBlog.com writes:

If you watch Twitter you’ll see people reporting an attack at the Marriot Hotel in Mumbai. The problem is there was NO ATTACK on the Marriot. The Ramada hotel next door was attacked by several gun men but nothing’s happened at the Marriot.

Now imagine, if you’re someone who has family or friends at the Marriot right now. You’d be scared out of your mind over information that’s completely false.

I’d argue that even the staunchest New Media proponents should consider that instead of celebrating their perceived success in creating services that are powerful noise distributors, they should go one step further and work on ways to tune into the signal. They might just find that platforms and algorithms aren’t enough - some sort of editorial structure is required.

As for Arrington, he simply can’t believe that “some people are still saying Twitter isn’t a news source.” And as if to validate his belief that Twitter is a news source, he quotes a CNN article that states:

It was the day social media appeared to come of age and signaled itself as a news-gathering force to be reckoned with.

Unfortunately, Arrington seems to be under the impression that most of TechCrunch’s readers won’t bother to read CNN’s article on Mumbai and Twitter (which just might be accurate). He conveniently leaves out CNN’s observation that plenty of misinformation was distributed via Twitter. And he conveniently ignores the article’s inconvenient conclusion:

What is clear that although Twitter remains a useful tool for mobilizing efforts and gaining eyewitness accounts during a disaster, the sourcing of most of the news cannot be trusted.

A quick trawl through the enormous numbers of tweets showed that most were sourced from mainstream media.

Someone tweets a news headline, their friends see it and retweet, prompting an endless circle of recycled information.

Frankly, when news breaks, I’d rather watch CNN. Clearly, however, some would rather participate in a circle jerk.