Sunday, June 21, 2009

Skip the networks for news, go to Twitter, blogger.com

You have to wonder if television news will go the way of newspapers with the instantaneous possibilities of local coverage by Twitter, social net works and blogs. I've been keeping up on the minute by minute protests in Iran through a blog and Twitter.

'persianq' on Twitter provides frequent updates on street protests and this blog posts pictures and sometimes videos and plenty of other links to news of protest.

There are plenty of other sources of instant information. With reporters being forced out of the countries this will be one of the main sources of information.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Interesting insight, and not that I'm questioning the particular source you cite here, but can we necessarily rely on tweets as a substitute for real reporting? It seems to be just a brief snippet of a larger story that needs someone - a professional journalist - to ferret out for us (or at least those of us who aren't there or don't have the time to research it more thoroughly ourselves).

Jim of L-Town said...

You are so right. I'm only looking at these sources because the gov't of Iran is forcing out professional journalists.

I always prefer the insights and reporting of professionals, including newspapers, but in their absence in the new age of social networking there is a fall back source.

It would be helpful if a former Iran reporter could interpret and verfiy some of these photos and videos. That would at least provide some context.