Media Response to Boston Marathon

Image via Business Insider.  Photo taken by Chris Roan 

Many of us, especially those who were there, may still be making sense of the recent tragedy of the Boston Marathon bombings. While this post is not going to recount of what happened on April 15th, this is more so about the response to it, particularly in the community and media. As a marketing student, I was also really interested in the social media response and PR activities involved. 

Where were you when the Boston bombings unfolded? Or HOW did you find out about the Boston bombings? Me? It was early Tuesday morning (Australian Eastern-Standard Time) on my commute to uni when my Twitter timeline was bombarded with tweets mentioning "Boston", "Boston Marathon", #prayforboston and #bostonstrong. 

All of the information I was receiving came from no other than the micro-blogging platform, Twitter. I did come across a couple of posts on Facebook, but those were only a fraction to the continuous developing updates and action on Twitter. Whether it be links to articles from official news services or tweets from actual witnesses who were there at the time of the marathon. Pretty much, most of the tweets on the timeline had a mention about it. Perhaps, it had a lot to do with the majority of my "following" list being Americans, but Australian journalists were also tweeting about this as the news developed.

It's fair to say that Twitter was the preferred source for readily accessible information when it comes to developing and breaking news. According to Mashable, Michael Sippy (Twitter VP of Consumer Product) revealed that 'Boston' received an increase of 20,000% of mentions on Twitter in response to the tragedy.  

Twitter users quickly made re-tweets, but most of us don't stop to think before we hit the re-tweet button. We don't assess whether the information we're reading is correct or whether the source is valid and reliable, nor whether the charities that pop up in response are legitimate or scams. For this reason, comes lots of complications and challenges when it comes to utilising Twitter as a news platform.

There are many flaws and interesting things to think about in terms of journalism which are also well discussed in the following articles; Simon Rickets (The Guardian), Hank Stuever (SMH) and Mathew Ingram (Paid Content).

Ever since the FBI revealed blurry images for the public to help identify the suspects, I was following the coverage via Twitter up until the final capture of one of the two suspects. I was glued to Twitter, and noticed a lot of the mistakes that were being made by journalists and social media users, as the interplay between the two was intriguing but also very conflicting.

Journalists were competing with each other to be the first to report the news. Even mainstream tv news broadcasts seem to have failed to respond as quickly for news delivery in comparison to digital media. 

Of course, we all know that journalism is a business but reporting without verifying the information first can be damaging to the investigation and those affected. This was particularly evident in the case of Sunil Tripathi. An innocent Brown University student who had been missing for a whole month, was speculated as a bombing suspect on Reddit. Some journalists I was following also tweeted this information immediately without confirmation  because they heard the name on the police scanner. NBC's news reporter, Pete Williams was praised as the hero reporter for his careful and accurate reports and challenged the speculation that was already being reported such as the case of Tripathi. Unfortunately, Tripathi had recently been found deceased and had nothing to do with the Boston tragedy. My thoughts are with his friends and family. RIP.  

While digital news is on the rise, and many flaws that come with them, they are still valuable. It's not all bad news when it comes to social media and it can't entirely be dismissed. As shown in the case of a higher-resolution photo of one of the suspects was supplied to assist in the suspect's identification. And Watertown resident, Andrew Kitzenberg who captured photos of the shootout in his neighhourbood and documented them onto Twitter. His first hand account is available on his blog (Get On Hand), in which he kindly asked news and media outlets to make a contribution to The One Fund Boston upon using his images. 

Only mistakes that are continually made without acknowledging them will cause the journalist and news organisation's brand to lose credibility. 

Lots o' Love, Linda