The Boston bombers manhunt saw social media take another step towards the forefront of breaking news – but at what cost? The tragic events at the Boston Marathon earlier this month moved quickly from a mystery on Monday to the death and capture of the two main suspects by Friday evening: all of which was covered in depth on Twitter, Reddit and elsewhere.
Such a fast-paced news story saw journalism finding itself in the hands of the consumers, utilizing phones and tablets to whip up a Twitter storm of speculation. Whereas once families would be glued to Sky News and CNN throughout the night, the same information could be obtained within seconds from journalists on the scene, and anyone else who cared to share their thoughts, in 140 characters.
Timelines were filled with images direct from the centre of the action: from graphic shots of dismembered victims at the roadside of the Marathon, to the US Army camped out around Watertown in the final hours before the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev.
Social media undoubtedly has now become, for many users, the first port of call when it comes to keeping up to date; it’s quick, to the point and free of the financial and political slants that beleaguers most British news outlets. Regardless, it is by no means an immaculate forum. A prime example of the problems with crowdsourcing reared its head just three days after the bombings. Sunil Tripathi, a student who had vanished weeks before, was incorrectly identified on Twitter as the main suspect in the inquest into the bombings. Imagine yourself as a member of the Tripathi family, huddled around a Rhode Island computer, dealing both with the enormity of a missing son, brother or cousin, only to have their misery compounded by extreme speculation of his character.
Reddit users even went as far as to set up their own crowd-sourced manhunt to track down the crowd-accused. Hours later it was revealed that Tripathi in fact had no link to the bombings despite the claims, which had been retweeted and reported by professional journalists – and the heartache of a Rhode Island family were quickly forgotten in a fast-paced fight to report the news ahead of others.
Of course, CNN and the Associated Press had both already run a story that a suspect had been arrested on Wednesday – pressured into being first to the goldmine of breaking a story that the non-stop, unqualified and unaccountable social media piles on. By Friday, more than 250,000 people were tuned into Boston Police radio scanners online – live tweeting the progress of the manhunt for Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, effectively from the police frontline. Despite repeated requests from Boston’s force over the radio itself to curtail the constant updating, their every move was posted online for anyone and everyone who cared to read. The police scanners tended to be where the news was broken first, quickly followed by the traditional channels who were also listening in.
The images of the armed forces camped around Watertown were also requested to be removed by the police as it gave away their positions, but again social media ruled – proudly showing the world images of street patrols and various inspections, which were again retweeted and reported elsewhere with little regard for the danger it put those on the frontline in.
Modern news organizations, if they are to survive, need to avoid being so naïve as to feel that users aren’t seeing all, whilst at the same time avoiding rushing to the conclusions inherent amongst the keyboard happy social networkers. Instead, the outlets should be seeking to provide context. The likes of Twitter have transformed news reporting so that those on the ground can not only report, but spread false rumours and stories. In turn, it has changed the role of breaking news channels and major newspapers, which need to be trustworthy sources of information more than ever before. Many papers have embraced social media, but it is undoubted that many could manage it better – as displayed this week.
Perhaps surprisingly, the perfect example came from the local press in Boston. The Boston Globe acted admirably, clarifying Twitter reports repeatedly as unconfirmed, whilst providing near-perfect coverage as it happened, in print, on their website, and crucially, across social media.
Crowdsourcing and open journalism hold endless opportunities, but unfortunately the balance of caution and desperation to be the quickest to report the story is yet to be found. Major news incidents show social media at its best and worst. Twitter is now far from, as some seem to think, posting about what you had for lunch, it has become the home of breaking news and that poses its own challenges: one of responsibility that a number of major news outlets got badly wrong this time round.