CNN Loses Ground to Crowdsourced News

This is the age of the empowered user, where one single person - ok, a celebrity - can have a bigger network than a news organization.

I've been watching Twitter (yes, Twitter has matured a great deal lately) and FriendFeed all weekend for information on the Iran election. At some point, Marshall Kirkpatrick of ReadWriteWeb even wrote a post to CNN for being hours behid the news in Iran.

If you think this is just the domain of geeks, maybe you have a point. However, is it good that a news organization is not paying attention to something that has been captivating the interest and conversation of so many? Given the humanity of the situation, it's not a surprise that we would all respond to it and want to learn more.

On FriendFeed, Scoble shared earlier how CNN is covering the news and I agree that it's not a matter of news organizations vs. citizen journalists or first person accounts. We even collected a number of ways to track what is being said from the country on FriendFeed. But, the current events are definitely giving us a taste of the differences between journalism, reporting and curated editorial all at once.

As I wrote the other day, in Iran users have moved from service to service - they're using SMS, email, Twitter, whatever they can find working - to broadcast news, organize, and find out what's going on from what we're playing back to them while we're using the same tools to listen and discuss in other parts of the world. 

The Economist says the real winner was an unusual hybrid of old and new media. I beg to differ because new media clearly led the way this time. It was clearly in the lead from the beginning and remained that way for its ability to not just inform (ok, in some cases misinform), but to touch such a diverse audience, to reach out from the screens to the hearts of the people - because everyone was participating in the news, not just watching from afar.

What is extraordinary is also that news organization did not need to run polls to know they were getting their clock cleaned by crowdsourced news, they were getting those comments directly live from Twitter and other new media networks. Stop running taped programming and pay attention, they said - and so they did.

Jeff Jarvis is correct in assessing filter failure, that is the main reason why we do need experienced news entities and/or people to sift through and verify/validate what comes our way. Andrew Sullivan at The Atlantic, The Guardian, The New York Times, and the Huffington Post have been doing a good job doing just that. The fact that breaking news is now posted to blogs is an indication of the maturity of this communication format. The BBC news is also getting props for good coverage in comments throughout new media.

This is the first time I can remember when we did not rely on our televisions to learn about breaking news but we saw it being reported and discussed live on our computer screens. This is how CNN loses ground to crowdsourced news - while many surely don't fancy themselves journalists, people do want to talk about what they're seeing and experiencing, together.

That is the true power of new media.

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Related posts:

Here Comes Everybody

Do we Need Editors in New Media?

What is New Media?

Comments

[Gal Barnea]

Let's get some perspective here. The number of people following this story on Twitter is tiny. The number of people blogging about how the story was bigger on Twitter than on CNN is also very small.

Crowdsourced news is like getting a traffic report phoned in to the local radio station. It's fast-food news that has no lasting impact because the form it's presented in is necessarily disposable. It's unverified, it's subjective and it has no journalistic checks and balances. It can be easily hijacked and it's only a matter of time before someone runs the first Twitter disinformation campaign or starts using Twitter to disseminate propaganda.

I applaud the advances the BBC has made in breaking news but I watch with caution as people embrace crowdsourced news as unfiltered "truth" without considering further.

[Pier Luca Santoro]

".....people do want to talk about what they're seeing and experiencing, together".

I totally agree. By the way this are the same conclusions that are contained in the last Newspapers Outlook 2009 recently released by PWC [http://giornalaio.wordpress.com/2009/05/11/newspapers-outlook-2009/ ]

Now we should understand and propose how to integrate traditional and new media for the benefit of both.

Ciao.

Pier Luca

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Daniel - I'm with you on the numbers. However, it was the small percentage on social media that prompted CNN to change its programming mix and offer more news about what's happening in Iran, news that may have long lasting ramifications for many. I also pointed out how other news organizations used their blogs to bring us information. And I did point out the issue with unfiltered truth and misinformation... The biggest point I made in the post, which PierLuca picked up on, is that we want to talk about what is happening and that is the essence of new media, something that traditional media is still having a very hard time integrating. It's not just about playing tweets at the bottom of broadcast. It's a new way of sourcing and discussing news. That is were engagement and action live.

@PierLuca - I fixed the link so that the parentheses doesn't interfere. Understanding and integrating is where we are. It seems to me that if a President can win an election by allowing his supporters to do more, perhaps instead of just watching the news, we can become more active global citizens if we feel that we can have a real impact on the outcome starting with greater awareness.

[Seamus Condron]

I agree that we should all be judicious when we're reading "unverified" reports on Twitter an other outlets. But you can't argue that the crowd-sourced media via Youtube, Twitpic, etc, is something that CNN and the other networks simply cannot compete with. That type of media doesn't need to be verified, because we're seeing it with our own eyes. It's much like 1991 when people were glued to CNN's coverage of the Gulf War because no other network was doing anything like it. There's another changing of the guard happening now.

After spending a good portion of the day yesterday looking through unfiltered multimedia on Twitter FriendFeed, and Twubs, outlets like CNN keep looking older. Even iReport, which CNN still refers to as "amateur" video, as if we're supposed to take that into account when assessing it's validity, looks pre-packaged and downright bland compared to what we're seeing via crowdsourced outlets.

I do think new media and traditional media need to converge for all of our benefits, but right now networks are still treating social media like a vanity accessory. Those tweets scrolling on the bottom of the screen are largely useless. They need to bring the audience more into the conversation somehow, or else more are just going to keep bypassing traditional outlets.

[Pier Luca Santoro]

On this topic I found very interesting this speech of Manuel Castells:
http://www.eduwilliam.com/?p=217

Ciao.

Pier Luca

[Rod Gillies]

I'm currently working my way (again) through The West Wing on DVD. Last night the Season 1 episode I was watching included the line; "The story is going to break tomorrow, it's on the internet now".

This throwaway line, which made the show feel up-to-the-minute 9 years ago, revealed how much things have changed.

Yes, mainstream broadcast media is probably where the majority of people still get their news fix, but if it's "breaking news" you're after then you're now looking elsewhere: "The story's broken, it'll be on the news tomorrow."

[Valeria Maltoni]

@Seamus - I think I know what you mean by the news outlets looking older; it's almost as if that information were staged and produced instead of it just being transmitted. Another thing I noticed is that usually the US networks filter out the graphic images, while in Europe and in digital media those images are shared and proposed as they are. What you're seeing is the news networks pandering to the audience with the tweets and called in comments, not a true dialogue or integration in the show. They're signaling that they're still "in charge" or control of the message.

@PierLuca - I'll need to brush up on my Spanish, which is nonexistent to begin with :) Thank you.

@Rod - good thinking about The West Wing episode. That show had good writers!

[JWilliams]

I prefer to see new media as enhancing ‘news’ rather than challenging convention. Traditional media simply can’t compete with the characteristics of new media when it comes to things like speed, channel or censorship. Established broadcast media will (for the moment anyway) maintain the premium of credibility and integrity due to the editorial and journalistic codes of practice embedded in the practice. New media and citizen journalism offers the alternative grass-roots, on-the-ground, in-your-face perspective. On occasion it may lead traditional media on breaking news, reveal new angles or insight, or circumvent barriers. New media is obviously a powerful new ally to traditional media and news organizations should continue to integrate and explore the balance of these complementary channels.