Hmmmm...on Mumbai coverage.

It seems to me that what bloggers and microbloggers did was regurgitate the news. They took stories from other sources and put it on twitter. This, I think has its pros and cons depending on what you are trying to get from a microblog source like twitter. If you want new news, then twitter isn't your best source. But, if you want a variety of headlines from a variety of sources, kind of like the Drudge Report, then twitter is a good source. Though, to me, it seems like there is A LOT of sifting to find credible, good, and accurate stuff. Who has time to sift? Especially to check credibility.

"A Twitterer owes no duty except to their own impressions and own state of mind, they'll pass on rumour as readily as fact," says Tom Sutcliffe in an article from the Guardian. This article was about the BBC's regrets with using twitter in covering the Mumbai attacks. I think credible news sources have to be extremely cautious in their use of tools like twitter. It's very difficult to "factcheck" a feed that comes from twitter before damage is already done. I think CNN uses twitter, but in a modified way where....like commentary rather than relying on it for breaking news.

I think this is becoming a big issue with blogging....credibility. Anybody can write just about anything with little accountability.

It seems that a "trend" may be the sacrafice of professionalism and accuracy for speed, competition, and beating the other guy to the punch. I love twitter. If I wanted I could "follow" a hundred different news organizations and get a well rounded feed of the day's news. I become much more weary of joe-six-packs who are trying to pose and breaking news journalists....

Just some random thoughts.

"Local News"

I was just looking at the local news headlines of my hometown paper, The La Grande Observer.

More Local News
Summit sought to address local jobless rate
Help buy bike rack for The Link
Raffle proceeds aid Halfway clinic
Have orchestra, will travel
New Baby Jesus figure to grace nativity scene
Santa's trains will depart Elgin depot Dec. 13-14

For those avid readers of The New York Times, or those who constantly check CNN.com, this news may seem a bit funny, and of little to no importance. But to the members of my little community, this is the stuff they want to hear about. I've been doing research on community journalism for a big research paper in my english class. A common theme is the idea of bringing the community together. I think from these headlines, we can see that my newspaper in a way is trying to do that.

Is this what "they" mean by hyper-localization talked about in "NewsWar" (wait is that what that documentary was called?)? Anyway, it is just interesting to go back and forth between national papers and community papers. Do you guys take stuff like fundraising for a bike rack seriously? Just some random thoughts on community journalism.....