Coverage of Mumbai Attacks

In Mumbai, India, there have been a number of terrorist attacks. These events were covered by various news corporations, but they were covered by citizen journalists, as well. People from all over used Twitter and blogs to communicate the devastation that occurred in India.

On Twitter, citizen journalists beat news sources to the punch as far as communicating the events in Mumbai to the public. However, the information these citizens provided was lacking in concrete information. Many tweets would say things like, "Attacks happening in seven different locations," and contained somewhat vague information. Basically the people knew big things were happening, but they were unsure as to what exactly or how many had been affected. Occasionally, someone on twitter would drop some numbers as far as how many people had been killed or wounded, but in my mind the sources were not entirely credible, and most likely got their information from some news corporation.

I applaud citizen journalists revealing news through Twitter and blogs, because they are many times better at creating awareness of breaking news. However, I don't think they can replace paid journalists as far as getting accurate information, and I think that the information provided by citizen journalists should be consumed carefully. Citizen journalists are not paid, and therefore do not necessarily have the motivation to present accurate news. It is the need for accurate news that hinders the coming forth of news from big news corporations, in my opinion. There is a quote that reads something like, "There has always been a tension between getting it first, and getting it right." The Mumbai attacks illustrate this very well.

As far as Twitter and blogs affecting journalism, they might help give journalists tips since tweets and blogs can be published within moments of breaking news events. However, I think there will always be a need for accurate and credible news, which journalists have the obligation to communicate to the world.