Twitterquake and Citizen Journalism

I was about to write a long and poignant post about my experiences last night when an earthquake struck the Bay Area, but I discovered  Scoble, as is often the case, beat me to it.
Scoble reported it exactly as I would have, so go read his post if you haven't already, then come back because I have a few thoughts to add, as I so often do.

Back already?

By the time the San Francisco Chronicle posted its first hot flash on the quake on it's 24/7 news site, 45 minutes after the avalanche of Twitter posts began,word of the quake had traveled several times around the world. The Chron add two very relevant points that Tweeters did not have. The magnitude (5.6) and the damage (no injuries).

This is something we've been talking about for years. People everywhere, walking around with internet-access phones are eye and ears for a global network. We have feet on nearly every street of the developed world.  We report what we see.  We do it fast and usually accurately.

Still, we cannot replace the discipline and structure of a professional news gathering organization. None of us thought to call the National Weather Service to get the Richter Scale  measurement.  Nor  did  we  call state police for injury and damage  reports.

My point is this: The world would be better served if we could braid the network of social media with the discipline of the traditional new gathering organization. So far, there are no good examples of this occurring and the world does not benefit from the chasm between an emerging institution and the obstinance of a crumbling one.

Comments

[tabitha]

i am studying the concept of the citizen journalist for my university dissertation and i agree with so much of what you say. i have been using your site for a while now. after reading this post i fially felt the urge to respond. I think that the way people reacted to the 7th of july boming in london was a good example of "braid(ing) the network of social media with the discipline of the traditional new gathering organization." The bbc was heavily reliant on citizens reactions and photographs of the tradgedy. I think londeners steped up to the plate an assisted in the journalistic process in a possitive way.

[shel israel]

Tabitha,
You are absolutely right. The BBC and citizen journalists did an incredible job of braiding in that case.