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Did Tech Websites Exploit the Boston Marathon Bombing?
Nerval's Lobster writes "These days, when something in the world goes very wrong, it seems as if everybody learns about it first on Twitter and Facebook. In the minutes after homemade bombs turned the finish line of the Boston Marathon into a crime scene, terms such as #BostonMarathon shot to the top of Twitter's Trends list; across the country, office workers first learned of the attack when someone posted a message on a Facebook page. Social networks have become this generation's radio, the default conduit for the freshest information. As first responders treated the wounded and the minutes ticked past, news organizations began vacuuming up Twitter and Facebook posts from around Boston and posting it on their Websites, along with 'regular' text updates. A Vine video-snippet of a bomb going off near the finish line, knocking a runner off his feet, ended up embedded into dozens of blog postings. When a disaster strikes, and many of those same news Websites post 'live updates' that incorporate tons of social-networking posts, they face accusations of exploiting the tragedy in the name of pageviews and revenue. That's not surprising—long before 'yellow journalism' became a term, people have charged news organizations with playing up humanity's worst for their own gain. In the immediate aftermath of the Boston bombings, online pundits lashed out against Mashable, The Verge, Wired, and other publications that had posted live updates, accusing them of stepping outside their usual coverage areas for cynical gain. In the following piece, a number of tech editors-in-chief, including The Verge's Joshua Topolsky and Mashable's Lance Ulanoff, talk about their approaches to covering the tragedy."
"Some Websites that posted “live updates” faced accusations of exploiting the tragedy in the name of pageviews and revenue." ??
Each time a disaster happens, we're FLOODED with the same info, repeated over and over... on TV and Internet...
So can I ask something : What's the difference between a website and a channel, such as Fox/CBC/CNN/etc !?
Why only the "Websites" and not every damn TV channel that broadcast the same ****ing news all day long?
ty.
No wonder there was so much misinformation. First there was 1 dud bomb that didn't go off, then there were 5. Then there were none.
This is all social media's doing.
... most news agencies are for-profit entertainment businesses, rather than public service organizations.
The idea that tech blogs can cover stories about tech, but should leave coverage of serious political and human issues to the "big boys" of traditional media, is ridiculous. There is no special license needed to write about serious and important topics, only the usual requirement that the reporting be genuinely in the public interest. Presenting information from social networks, as long as it is labelled as such and not misrepresented as certain fact, is in no way improper. If people are interested in reading about that information, there is nothing wrong with providing it, and if tech blogs feel that because of their focus, they are especially able to do this, then they should.
I'm a marathon runner, and the first I heard about this was from friends inquiring if I knew anybody there. I can't conceive of what earthly good this information would have done them (perhaps they wanted to offer me some sort of comfort if I had) but I do know that whatever it is, people are fascinated by the tragedies and want to know everything they can the soonest they can.
So I can hardly blame news companies for giving people the fastest information that they can. They're not so much "exploiting" the tragedy as giving people what it is they're craving (or at least, the closest substitute they can get to it, the unverified raw data stream). I don't think it's doing them any good (that's a different rant) but they're not forcing this on people. They're doing what people ask them to do.
In what way did news coverage make things worse? If a huge crowd of cameramen were to obstruct the way of emergency vehicles I would understand the uproar, but absent that I fail to see what damage could journalism possibly cause.
It's no fault of social media that they are more timely and have more information than local / national news organizations. People want to get the info so they turn to whatever source they can. I don't see it as some crass opportunism to increase page count. It's simply social media sites deliver what the people want more quickly than anybody else.
across the country, office workers first learned of the attack when someone posted a message on a Facebook page.
I have no idea if this is true or not, but unfortunately I believe it.
People waste so much paid work time on Facebook. Why don't they put it to productive use, and post on Slashdot instead?
#DeleteChrome
People made calls and sent texts immediately. This affects their monthly bill. Based on this TFS's reasoning, should we not see AT&T and Sprint as exploiting the tragedy as well?
It doesn't particularly matter if they were trying to exploit it or not since they just can't do non-tech major breaking news reporting as good as the big boys.
Take The Verge, for example, who seem to not grasp the simple concept that if you're going to try and live blog, you write from the bottom up to allow for rapid F5'ing. Mashable's content is no better than one going to Twitter and typing "Boston" in the search box.
If you want to exploit something, you need to give them reason to stick around while you fleece them for ad dollars... I clicked off the tech sites and went to CNN and the Wall Street Journal (the latter, to me, had superior coverage).
As first responders treated the wounded and the minutes ticked past, news organizations began vacuuming up Twitter and Facebook posts from around Boston and posting it on their Websites, along with 'regular' text updates. A Vine video-snippet of a bomb going off near the finish line, knocking a runner off his feet, ended up embedded into dozens of blog postings. When a disaster strikes, and many of those same news Websites post 'live updates' that incorporate tons of social-networking posts, they face accusations of exploiting the tragedy in the name of pageviews and revenue.
So, wait, are talking about "tech websites" or "traditional journalists" here? Because when I first heard about the explosions (from Twitter, naturally), I went to boston.com - which was in some kind of "low bandwidth" mode where they front page was only showing tweets related to the explosions.
"Traditional" media throughout the aftermath referenced tweets. NPR referenced the Boston Police Department's Twitter feed for updates. Local TV stations turned to Twitter, Vine, and YouTube to find videos of the explosion.
I guess only tech websites aren't "allowed" to mine Twitter? Because from what I could tell, everyone was doing that, from print to radio to TV to the web.
You are in a maze of twisty little relative jumps, all alike.
legitimized with an editorial?
Traditional news sites repost content from social networks and blog sites, and then traditional media blames social networks and blog sites for exploiting tragedy and the errors they themselves repeated.
Who fucking cares what they think. You should be attacking them directly, not defending yourselves with equivocation about page views and advertising. Newspapers and TV news have ads too, and their websites are even more obnoxious with them.
If people would simply put, "it is reported" in tweets instead of "it is confirmed" (when it is not), we could really cut down on a lot of misinformation.
If The Verge, Slashdot, Wired or, heck, Gizmag want to write about the explosion - it is their 1st Amendment right to do so. Same goes for the National Enquirer, STAR, or any of the other tabloid journals. This isn't any different than WSJ, NYT, Boston Globe, Chicago Tribune, LA Times, Al Jazeera, etc. can write about tech items, happiness, tragedy, cat getting stuck in a tree or anything else considered newsworthy.
Each outlet will be judged by how well they do their job, and will receive an appropriate reputation.
Since our news organizations are a combination of subscriber and advertiser revenue based, they have to write according to their generating said revenue.
We can either just deal with the situation as it stands or have state-run news organizations. I really don't think anyone would be comfortable with the latter as even approaching truthfulness or integrity in the long term.
If the 'Big Boys' don't like the upstarts encroaching on their turf - all I can say is.. too bad.
I got back from work and learned of the explosions from Slashdot first, opened a tab to googlenews and caught on that it was still too recent to get a fully accurate understanding of this story. I read the comments here and did get information that proved to be accurate (applause for the good users here). There's nothing wrong with Slashdot posting the story, it is news that matters.
Sorry, Betteridge, but I have to agree with this headline. When I first learned of the bombing, I attempted to get to footage of the live feed. When I clicked on the link, I was treated to an upbeat commercial with two guys joking around and playing guitar in an attempt to sell Geico insurance. I thought there must be some mistake because no one in their right mind would force a viewer to watch commercials before getting news about a tragedy, but sure enough the live feed proceeded after the commercial. Humanity has commercialized tragedy much sooner than I expected.
Which was a cool article, but did not describe any good way to make a portable bomb a pressure cooker. It did, however, describe very well how you could kill yourself and everyone in your kitchen by using it as part of your chemistry set.
Don't they know that exploiting tragedy for profit is the job of the mainstream media?
(as is handwringing over doing just that)
Seriously, if you're in the news business, whether a blogger or a regular media member, exploiting tragedies is part and parcel of your business. "If it bleeds, it leads", right?