Twittering the Revolution
Eighteen years ago CNN got one of its first big scoops covering the first Gulf War when they convinced the Iraqi government to let them install a four-wire – an uncensored hard telephone line – between Baghdad and Atlanta enabling them to cover Operation Desert Storm's January bombing of the Iraqi capitol live when every other network had packed up and gone home.
It is perhaps because of this tradition of up-to-the-instant war coverage that CNN became the target this weekend of bloggers angered at the network's treatment of the Iranian electoral irregularities and subsequent mass protests. CNET and other media bloggers criticized the network's website for simply reporting Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejab's planned victory rally and not leading with the irregularities, noting that hours after tens of thousands of protesters began clashing with police the lead story on CNN.com was still the relatively smooth transition from analog to digital TV in the U.S. Nico Pitney, a blogger with the Huffington Post combed through cable transcripts for mentions of Iran: only 91 on CNN on Saturday compared to 177 on the BBC and 149 on Sky News – Fox's international affiliate. And critics convened on twitter to complain, making #CNNfail the top hit subject on the social networking site most of the weekend.
Twitter, instead, became the go-to source of information – and, even more importantly, organizing on the ground amongst Iranians – as Iran expelled and arrested foreign journalists, shut down the country's cell phone service and blocked most Western media websites, including facebook. “ALL internet & mobile networks are cut. We ask everyone in Tehran to go onto their rooftops and shout ALAHO AKBAR in protest #IranElection,” twittered a supporter of Mir-Hossein Mousavi – the reform candidate who is challenging the election results – shortly before Tehran was swallowed by deafening rooftop chants very early Sunday morning. Ahmadinejab won 63.29% of the vote – a landslide victory – according to Iran's Interior Ministry but Mousavi alleges the vote was rigged and Supreme Leader Ayatullah Ali Khamenei has ordered an investigation.
Twitter has two things going for it: its feeds come from not one or two or ten reporters but thousands of every day Iranians and, like CNN had in Baghdad in 1991, it has a technical advantage. As fast as the Iranian government has been shutting off IP addresses to would-be bloggers, new viable lines have opened up, helped by observers from abroad. The twitter stream #iranelection is full of IP addresses for use by Iranians to keep the outside world informed as more than 200,000 of them take to the streets in protest on Monday. The Iranian election is doing for twitter what Baghdad once did for CNN: giving it street cred as a mainstream source of news. To be fair, CNN's coverage has now picked up and is as good as it has been on any major world disaster the last 20 years. By Sunday, CNN caught on, finally, and lead the cable news pack with at least 185 mentions on Iran – by far more than any other network. But what the frustration with CNN over the weekend showed is there is a market for minute-by-minute news that grows demanding and petulant when not fed. It is a hunger that is nearly impossible for any one organization to meet but that twitter and its legions of micro bloggers and would-be civic journalists is ideally positioned to fill.
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I can't help but wonder what Kermit Roosevelt, Jr. would have thought about Twitter? I also wonder if his predecessors are using it?
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JNS-Besides the mentions one of the critical things CNN and the other networks lack is an understanding of how to cover and truly inform people about what's going on. CNN and MSBNC can say Iran all day long, but if the quality sucks to point of being useless info or boxscore type coverage they are still not getting it.
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"Revolution"? Isn't that a little strong? It's not like the Iranians got to choose who was on the ballot in the first place.
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they're really another source rather than a replacement
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There still remains important value in assessing the 'big pictures' when evaluating information. One phenomenon that needs to be controlled for is 'self-selection'.
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Just as an example, if you to sample the comment threads here at Swampland, you would thinkthat Liberals outnumber Conservatives 20 to one. Doing the same exercise at Jake Tapper's site and you would assume that Conservatives outnumber Liberals by the same ratio. Both sites are allegedly MOR News sites so its not the news content that drives the difference but the way that communities grow once they've been seeded.
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What does that have to do with Twitter. Only that the information coming out of Iran via that medium will have a very specific viewpoint and agenda dictated by the medium itself and the circumstance of it being the only available 'non-official' information feed.
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So while Twitter might be a fine source of raw information, there is still an imporrtant role to be played by traditional media to try and create a larger context. -
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[...] Time Magazine [...]
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Jay Newton-Small:
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While it's obviously admirable (and necessary) that you've reported on this phenomenon, I believe that there is a small bit of copy from this post with which reasonable people can take great issue:
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what the frustration with CNN over the weekend showed is there is a market for minute-by-minute news that grows demanding and petulant when not fed
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Really?
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"Demanding and petulant"?
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Is that characterization necessary?
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Why isn't the proper characterization:what the frustration with CNN over the weekend showed is there is a market for minute-by-minute news during international crises that is proving to be largely dissatisfied with the imperatives, preferences and capabilities of the current leading television-based news organizations
, instead of what is essentially a slur?
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Why is popular dissatisfaction with Larry King reruns "petulant"?
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Why are we being made out to be spoiled children screaming for candy?
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Also:
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It is a hunger that is nearly impossible for any one organization to meet...
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That should probably read:
It is a hunger that is nearly impossible for any one organization to meet unless and until they radically change their current models and methods...
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I understand that you've laid out the capabilities of the amateur press ("legions of micro bloggers and would-be civic journalists") quite neatly, but this point --that nothing is preventing "any one organization" from being all that a news organization could be, other than an inability to change how they do business-- is a much more accurate claim than your "It's impossible! (What do these morons expect?)" comment.
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Thanks so much for reading and considering this, Jay Newton-Small. -
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So the people of Iran are refusing to accept the election results dictated to them by the "Supreme Leader" (spob, that's a revolution in anyone's book) and you think *CNN* is the story?
#JNSfail
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According to the tenets of the "Rosen Doctrine", do we expect the Time article on Iran to be guest written by Doug Feith or Joe the Plumber?
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"Revolution"? Isn't that a little strong?
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That depends entirely on how the story ends.... -
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I was furious that the news stations basically ignored the Iran story until late yesterday. MSNBC DOES go on air with news when important events are happening during the weekend but all they had were their stupid prison shows on Saturday and Sunday. And of course Fox continued to be a joke.
But I really expected more from CCN. They're morons. I'm sure there were thousands and thousands of news junkies like me who normally don't watch CNN during the weekend unless there is a big story. And when there is a big story I have stayed glued to CNN in the past.
Ironically in their pursuit of ratings they lost viewers to the web.
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Wondered how tone deaf CNN and MSNBC will be about this? When will they start running the commericals hyping their coverage that never was?
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Just because it's good and will help spob get the joke....
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http://www.gilscottheron.com/lyrevol.html
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Technology and instant communication. Closed societies aren't quite so closed anymore. I may have to revise my thoughts toward twittering. Are we all journalists now?
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"Are we all journalists now?"
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Nah, we just think we're important enough that our opinion matters and technology is boosting our egos. -
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So, I'm trying to find out something about what's going on in Iran, and on CNN I can watch a rerun of Larry King interviewing several gentlemen without shirtsleeves who apparently assemble choppers. On Fox Mike Huckabee is trying to explain why Jesus hates credit card relief. MSNBC is rerunning something about a prison in New Mexico. CNBC is evaluating whether college students should be able to afford Chanel tote bags.
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Media fail..
To sum up: "The fact that the best reporting on the Iranian election crisis is coming from Twitter and random comments from students inside the country is not necessarily a testament to the expansive power of new media but to the irredeemable failure of the old media."
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Kudos to Time for staying on the story. -
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Mental masturbation. Who'd a thunk it? A high tech circle jerk. I'm disgusted yet somehow intrigued
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Police in Iran charged at protesters using their motorbikes, in a bid to break up a street rally.
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One policeman crashed his bike during the charge and was helped to safety by protesters.
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An Italian journalist caught the incident on his mobile phone.
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http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/8099857.stm -
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In all fairness, maybe the Iranian Election just snuck up on the TV media. I mean it was the weekend and an election just sort of broke out.
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[...] what the first Iraq war did for CNN? Looks like Twitter is gonna come into its own during this crisis in [...]
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The operative phrase is "Eighteen years ago..." Call me petulant, but it wouldn't have occurred to me to turn on today's CNN for coverage of the Iran situation, twitter or no twitter. They are just barely this side of the "Today Show."
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[...] Jay Newton-Small at Swampland: Eighteen years ago CNN got one of its first big scoops covering the first Gulf War when they convinced the Iraqi government to let them install a four-wire – an uncensored hard telephone line – between Baghdad and Atlanta enabling them to cover Operation Desert Storm’s January bombing of the Iraqi capitol live when every other network had packed up and gone home. [...]
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Jay Newton-Small:
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Just when you thought things couldn't get worse than Larry King reruns/prison docu-tainment...
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Please tell us that this is a joke, Jay Newton-Small.
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It has to be, right? -
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"Please tell us that this is a joke, Jay Newton-Small."
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Glen Greenwald:
It's a defining attribute of early adolescence to be incapable of seeing the world through any lens other than total self-centeredness, self-absorption and empathy-free self-obsession. [snip] They never advanced beyond the adolescent stage of tribalistic self-absorption and it's amazing how completely that lies at the core of most of what they believe and argue.
Make it stop. I'm begging.
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Greenwald was talking about the wingnuts but, in this case, the principle of tribal self-absorption seems about the same. If Chuck Todd and Grover Norquist are what passes for "hunk" in their world, what more really needs to be said?
- jnsmall Soo sore from shoveling #snOMG that I actually can't touch my toes. I think my hamstrings are going to snap. - 6 hours ago
- jnsmall @ Marvin tonite where a couple, Jenny & Jon, were so aggressive in their suck-facing they actually moved our grp 15 ft. People, get a room. - 6 hours ago
- jnsmall @Todd_Zwillich as a rule, do you have to drink drinks bearing you name, ie Todd likes Hot Toddies? Thank God I'm not named (Bloody) Mary! - 1 day ago
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