> terrorist attacks or natural disasters

But in the case of a terrorist attack, surely not knowing what’s going on can be worse and generate more panic and more false rumours? Sometimes the unwillingness of official sources to say anything for hours in case it’s wrong adds to the confusion and panic, makes them look untrustworthy. At least with a format like microblogging it appears and is understood to be far more transient, live, and expressly NOT a fixed and final statement for the ages – which is how it can appear when done as a traditional article or TV media report

I’d argue that TV carries far more weight for most people these days than print. Rolling news is already happening – it’s just that print/text journalism can’t keep up and can do little to correct inexactitudes. At least microblogging gives it a seat at the rolling news table without compromising the follow-up analysis and summary articles, which are the historical records.

Now, I’ve just realised that one recent example of social media journalism raises a very real problem – the report of Steve Job’s ‘death’ on CNN’s citizen journalism site that sent Apple stock plummeting. But that sort of thing already happens with traditional media (i.e. Bloomberg’s accidental release of a Jobs obit a few weeks earlier) so it doesn’t undermine the suggestion of microblogging as a valid journalistic technique and option – in the right circumstances and with the proper editorial judgement of course. A shiny new tool doesn’t mean we should lose our heads and use it any more or less professionally than other means at our disposal.

How would they correct previous inexactitudes? this style only lends itself to additive drip feeding of potentially contradictory statements rather than carefully considered, researched or validated information. So, for these events I much prefer the current tactic of putting on a headline and small story with a more to follow soon and then updating the whole story as and when appropriate.

I guess I’d query whether any coverage – certainly detailed, extensive coverage – of a private funeral is good news judgement. If it’s not, then it doesn’t matter whether that coverage is achieved through Web 2.0 or traditional means.

But transfer this to coverage of Princess Diana’s funeral that I mentioned, which was very public and blanket news coverage absolutely inevitable. Would Twitter/microblogging be out of place or tasteless there? No more than the packs of press photographers, the reporters, the TV cameras. I doubt it would even raise an eyebrow if there was a “live text/as it happened” feed, and I would certainly have no problems with it. And I think it would give the best, most accurate, most involving coverage short of being there or having the full TV feed.

But it doesn’t remove the need for an editor to make a basic upfront editorial decision about what to cover, that’s for sure.

What about a funeral?
http://hackademic.net/2008/09/16/taking-twitter-reporting-to-the-edge/