G20 protest coverage? I’ll stick to Twitter
April 2nd, 2009 by Lloyd Gofton
It can’t have escaped anyone’s notice that the G20 summit is on in London currently, and the protests that accompany this event have taken centre stage with the majority of mainstream media. Well I say protests, depending on what you are watching/reading/listening to, the protests could be riots and the unrest is either down to a small minority of anarchists or thousands.
Although the issue is a serious one, the coverage of the protests has been disappointing in my opinion, as some of the media outlets again look directly towards the sensational angle. For example, there was a well-documented attack on a branch of The Royal Bank of Scotland in the midst of the protest yesterday (Wednesday). The reports of this attack seemed to vary greatly in terms of the amount of people involved, the timescale before Police interjected and amount of damage. There is no doubt that the damage caused was extensive, but from the news footage that I viewed, the initial damage was caused by 1-2 protesters surrounded by upto 40 photographers. There is no question that others followed suit, between 20-40 depending on the source, for between 15 minutes to an hour, before police removed them.
So, what’s the truth? It’s hard to say. The one irrefutable fact that came out of the coverage is that one protester unfortunately died, although how this happened is unclear. What is clear is that most nationals led with this ‘protester dies’ headline, with many now saying he died from a heart attack and had been returning from work locally when he became involved in the protest.
The criticism of protesters or Police tactics also vary depending on your source of information, but the one constant reliable source of information in my opinion was, and remains, Twitter or at least my personal network on Twitter.
Let me make it clear that obviously there are individuals, and media, on Twitter, including many traditional news sources, that have their own agenda when reporting on the protests. But i’m not referring to these sources.
What I am referring to is my personal network of people that I choose to follow. These are individuals that I trust and in my opinion stand little to gain from sensationalism. In fact I heard about many of the key points of yesterday’s, and today’s, news stories much earlier in the day on Twitter and without fail they have been proved accurate in terms of facts, and it’s the facts that I personally want reported upfront and uncluttered. Again, this is where Twitter triumphs as you have to get your point across in 140 characters.
Beyond the facts, I also got a feeling for what the mood was like on the ground, and also heard a few light-hearted anecdotes about the day’s events from all sides, which helped to put the major points into perspective.
So, what’s my point? Fundamentally, what I’m trying to say is that my reliable news source, which in years gone by was the news on TV, or radio, or newspaper reports, then the online versions of these outlets, has now moved to Twitter.
Why? Well, it’s more relevant to me, it’s immediate and offers a gateway to a whole host of additional news sources as my network links to reports that they find interesting.
And just to prove the point, I’ve also been getting up to the minute quotes from President Obama’s speech at the G20 summit this evening via my network.
I’m not saying Twitter should replace the traditional so called ‘trusted news sources’, as Twitter offers the freedom to report anything according to personal agenda with no visible consequence. (See my colleague Wendy’s recent post on this issue). But I trust my personal network and if they are on the ground receiving direct information I will continue to take their updates inline with other news sources. After all, this is now my chosen source of news, and just as a person’s choice of mainstream media outlet reflects certain characteristics about their political preference or the manner in which they like to digest information, my choice of Twitter probably tells you what you need to know about my belief in the power of networks and reliability of communities.
Tags: G20 protest, g20 summit, twitter
