BBC criticised over Mumbai Twitter coverage

I just read an entry in the Guardian’s PDA Digital Content Blog about the BBC’s use of Twitter, specifically highlighting the criticism the broadcaster has come under for using unsubstantiated citizen reports in its coverage of the Mumbai terror attacks.

Apparently a specific tweet is at the centre of discussion – the comment stated that the Indian government called for an end to Twitter updates from Mumbai which was covered in their “live updates” page.

BBC News website editor Steve Herrmann said, “Should we have checked this before reporting it? Made it clearer that we hadn’t? We certainly would have done if we’d wanted to include it in our news stories (we didn’t)….But should we have tried to check it and then reported back later, if only to say that we hadn’t found any confirmation? I think in this case we should have, and we’ve learned a lesson.”

Looking at the comments from people responding to the blog entry on the Guardian’s website, the general feeling is that people are finding it difficult to see the difference between interviewing someone on the street or by phone as an ‘eyewitness’ and relaying the comments and sentiment on Twitter.  I tend to agree with this – although in the same way that people have become much more selective about who they include in their social networks, people need to check out who they are following on Twitter before accepting them as a trusted source, and if the post comes in as a tagged post (#tagname) or a targeted response (@twitterer) then more care should be taken before referencing the post.

To put all of this in context, the BBC says, “As for the Twitter messages we were monitoring, most did not add a great amount of detail to what we knew of events, but among other things they did give a strong sense of what people connected in some way with the story were thinking and seeing.”

I think this is an important point – what the BBC did using Twitter was a great way of delivering a sense of feeling and connectedness, and provided it is taken in the context in which it is meant, it can add real value to news delivery.

The Independent’s Tom Sutcliffe said news providers should be a bit more careful about blurring the boundary between twittering and serious reporting.

He writes, “Twitterers are hair-trigger communicators, and presumably absolutely itching to get something of substance into their despatches. Whereas a journalist has a reasonably strong incentive not to broadcast misleading or dubious information, because such an eventuality would come with a professional cost, a Twitterer owes no duty except to their own impressions and their own state of mind. They’ll pass on rumour as readily as fact, and there’s absolutely no way of telling which is which.”

I disagree with Sutcliffe – with Twitter, in general, people only follow what they choose to follow, so if a source becomes known as posting inaccurate information, people will just stop following.  Perhaps more importantly people are using Twitter to communicate with their professional peer network – they have a vested interest in only posting things they are comfortable will not damage them or their professional reputation among peers.

Follow my Twitter feed at www.twitter.com/jameshawksworth

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