For just $17.99, you can be the proud (triumphant) owner of this #CNNFail ringer T.
Probably you’ve heard of #CNNFail? That’s the Twitter hashtag (and related Web site) created over the weekend and affixed to a downpour of tweets from people complaining about what they saw as CNN’s slow-footed weekend coverage of the emerging post-election situation in Iran. “Untold thousands,” according to the New York Times, “used the label ‘CNNfail’ on Twitter to vent their frustrations.”
According to the Wall Street Journal:
Snarky tweets included, “Dear CNN, Please Check Twitter for News About Iran,” “The revolution started on the weekend, people! Give [CNN] a break.”
I’ll add a few: “Twitter is my new CNN!”; and, “CNN no longer decides what is news. We do.”
I’m no cable apologist. But (and my colleague Megan is working on a longer piece examining this in more detail) I do think we need to, yes, explore (again) Twitter’s potential as a reporting tool and as a tool for mobilizing complaints about those already doing the reporting —a media criticism tool— but also ask some questions.
What are the key things we want/need to know about the very difficult and difficult to report (ever-changing, hard-to-read, limited-access) situation in Iran? And how many of these questions might be answered by Twitter (and/or, more generally, Twitter-fast)? And how many of them might require us to wait an hour or so (a day, daresay?) for, say, that Christiane Amanpour update?
Remember blogger triumphalism? Doesn’t some of this sound like that? Maybe you need to get your news from Twitter, CNN! Well, that’s just what a penitent (overcompensating?) CNN seemed to do, largely, yesterday (with, for the patient, occasional updates from Amanpour). Octavia Nasr (at one point introduced as “CNN’s Senior Editor for Arab Affairs” brought on to analyze the latest in, um, Persian Affairs— more CNNFail! — but later correctly identified by her official, more relevant-sounding title, “CNN’s Senior Editor for Middle East Affairs”) sat behind the news desk reading tweets as they appeared on her Blackberry. Nasr’s still there doing a lot of that today.
I’m not suggesting #CNNFail has nothing to teach us. Just that I hope the we get more from it than CNN Could Have Done More, Faster And If They Don’t, Twitter Will Be There To Take Them To Task (And, Eventually, Replace Them). Anyway, Megan will have more on this later.
Now that Twitter breaks news faster than any TV network could ever hope to, the networks should simply stop trying to be first with the facts. Why bust your tail for second place? They should focus on assembling the flood of random facts and rumors into a coherent picture—if they can be first with that, they will have a strong role and provide an essential service that Twitter can't match.
#1 Posted by D. B., CJR on Tue 16 Jun 2009 at 04:10 PM
There is a vetting problem that MSM must go through that is crucial to it's integrity. It must verify stories to ensure what it's giving over to the public is as accurate as possible. We remember the awful gaffs like "Dewey wins!" and hold the MSM very accountable for their statements.
I came across the #iranelection hashtag early Saturday morning and read with rapt attention as the events were unfolding. I am amazed at the influence Twitter has had on MSM and on the entire beginnings of what appear to be a revolution in a country.
But twitter isn't news. It's social media. What we're seeing is a group of people struggle under extraordinary circumstances. Take a second and think about all the false reports that were going around on MSM during 9/11. What would twitter have done that day? How much real information would we have gotten.
Twitter smashed the door open to pictures, videos and real people struggling to be heard. Twitter members responded by helping them be heard. It is a remarkable thing, but it is not the news.
We've raised awareness and hopefully done some good. But we can't really say more than that.
#2 Posted by Lisa Johnson, CJR on Wed 17 Jun 2009 at 02:30 PM
I agree with D.B.
Professional journalism still has a role to play not only in assembling reports into a coherent picture, but also vetting those reports and *especially* providing in depth analysis of those reports.
Hopefully tools like Twitter will not kill professional news media, but rather cause people to demand higher quality reporting from their professional news media. With faster, cheaper options out there, the professionals will be forced more and more to justify their existence by providing something that simply cannot be given to us by the average Joe.
He said, she said will no longer cut it in the future.
Thank god.
#3 Posted by Brian, CJR on Thu 18 Jun 2009 at 05:09 AM