Covering the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks with Social Media Monitoring

Podcast: Play in new window | Download (Duration: 24:48 — 28.4MB) | Embed

Subscribe: Google Podcasts | Spotify | Email | RSS

What is media monitoring and analysis and how is it useful in journalism?

If you're interested in how social media monitoring works, you'll find this case study about how a reporter used social media monitoring to cover the Mumbai terrorists attacks fascinating.

In this exclusive audio podcast interview, Former Columbia Journalism Review Chief Mathew Ingram (he currently serves as chief digital writer) talks about how he used Twitter, Flickr and Wikipedia to triangulate truth and follow the Mumbai terrorist attack from thousands of miles away.

His coverage was controversial because some said you can't effectively write news coverage based on social media content alone. But he explains why that's not true, and his case if very compelling.

Social media monitoring continues to grow in importance as a news source.

And Twitter, which is the fastest of the social networking tools offering real time search, is emerging as an especially valuable source for reporters.

Mathew discusses why is media monitoring important, how to monitor social media to cover the news and how to monitor social media traffic. He wrote about Twitter as a news source on his blog as well.

His coverage of the tragedy cemented Twitter's role as a valuable news sources for tracking events in real time, according to an article titled “I Can't Believe Some People Are Still Saying Twitter Isn't A News Source,” by Tech Crunch Founding Editor Michael Arrington.

He has written about the intersection between media and technology since the earliest days of the commercial internet.

Mathew has been published in the Washington Post and the Financial Times as well as by Reuters and Bloomberg.

Media Monitoring and Analysis of the Mumbai Terrorist Attacks

3:15 – Ingram on his recent blog post referencing Om Malik and immediate media like video camera reports.

4:29 – Ingram on his co-workers adoption of new media and emerging tools like TweetDeck and tag clouds.

5:35 – Ingram on whether Twitter is a good way for an organization spread the word about itself.

6:44 – What mainstream media can do that social media cannot.

8:30 – Ingram on how he consumes new media content through Blog Search, Wikipedia, Flicker and YouTube.

10:02 – Whether different social media channels are best for different information.

11:48 – Ingram on the opinion of Shel Holtz of For Immediate Release regarding whethe ror not old media adapts.

13:25 – Whether he tracks the paid PR newswires in addition to social media.

16:04 – Whether or not daily newspapers should get out of the breaking news business.

18:06 – How journalism can take the time to verify the news coming out of Twitter and publish it in a timely manner.

21:05 – Aaccuracy of mainstream media and the immediacy of new media.

23:07 – Passion in journalism vs. passion in blogging.

24:48 – End

Photo by IJF.