Skip navigation

 Login or Register | Member Centre

Twitter breaks Chinese earthquake news

Mathew Ingram, May 12, 2008 at 11:41 AM EDT

Like many others, I woke up this morning to news of a disaster in China: a magnitude 7.8 earthquake in the southwest, with thousands of people either dead or injured. Unlike some, I didn't get the news from the radio or TV -- I got it from Twitter, a group-chat/instant messaging client that has been gaining in popularity as a real-time news application. Much like the forest fires in California last fall and other recent news events, Twitter became one of the main sources of on-the-ground reporting -- even before CNN started picking up what was happening, and with more personal detail. According to Search Engine Land, Twitter even beat the U.S. Geological Survey, which tracks quake readings.

During such times, Twitter seems like a "crowd-sourced" reporting tool, much like what NowPublic.com of Vancouver has created but with cellphones and 140 character messages as the medium. In any disaster, one of the first things people look for is the eyewitness account, the first-person description, the man on the scene. Whenever something like the earthquake happens, thousands of editors and producers at newspapers, radio programs and TV networks clog the phones trying to reach someone, anyone, who can provide a personal account: they call homes, schools, stores, friends, distant relatives. What was it like? Where were you when it happened? What happened next?

Twitter is able to supply all of those things -- and it's also self-directed. People can post messages about whatever they wish, rather than answering only the questions that a producer asks them, and they can add links to blog posts, photos, maps and video. In the study I wrote about recently that looked at Twitter and Facebook and Wikipedia as disaster reporting tools, one of the comments about the California fires was that the media focused on celebrities and how they were affected, but Twitter and other sources gave a more complete version of events and how they were affecting everyone.

Obviously, 140-character messages don't take the place of reported stories that check facts and determine what exactly happened, or pull together various reports into a coherent whole. But they are a compelling part of that story -- and journalists who know how to take advantage can produce something much more complete with the help of all those Twitter reporters in the field. Journalism has been called "the first draft of history," -- and now the people putting together that draft have even more help in getting it right the first time. For more sources and info, check out the post at Global Voices Online.

  1. C Dione from Canada writes: This technology will do an end run around the communist scensors......until they block it for their citizens!!
  2. Craig Cooper from Toronto, writes: I'd rather have accuracy than instantaneous "news."
  3. Gopal Bhattacharyya from Toronto, ON, Canada writes: We are seeing another disaster this time in China. We are right in blaming Burma for not acceping foreign relief workers and aid. But what do we do about helping China after the earthquake. China is not going to allow foreign relief workers moving around in the region without Chinese supervision. I would like to see how we deal with it. You can't push China around. This world has one set of rules for the weak and an another set of rules for the strong.
  4. Mary Coyote from what would make the oceans rise 300 feet?, Canada writes: The above comments are silly: “communist scensors“ are leftists with feelings? Accuracy? I thought there was no such thing as Objective Truths.
    http://plato.stanford.edu/contents.html

    I don't use Twitter and am happy that you turned me on to it, even as the Globe and Mail turned on many readers to the Huffington Post news/blog years ago. Although the Huff is a technical and 'scensored' disaster after three years of trying to get it right, It is the model for New Media.

    Old media such as the Globe really need to take a good hard look at this and make the adjustments necessary to remain relevant. Adding comments that are hidden away and need an extra click to discover is NOT THE WAY.

    I love the Globe and Mail, but I love New Media even more. I really hope the Globe upgrades some more.
  5. W L from Canada writes: It would be foolishly naive to think Twitter can get around commie censors. For all we know, they made Twitter popular. Governments needing useful crowd control devices would be the first to create and administer such service. After it's been out there for a few month and earned users' trust, government agents can use Twitter to spread rumors and create mass confusion with such service.

    If you haven't heard about student demonstrations at Tiananmen square in 1989 and how the government "dispersed" the crowd, now is the time to read up. Basically, government agents posing as protesting students mixed in with the crowd and spread false rumors. This lead to mass confusion and the eventual arrest of many student leaders.

    Now, with Twitter, government don't even need to send agents out. A few quick messages will do.

    Of course, this type of infiltration is still primitive compared to the West, where much more sophisticated operations called "media" is used to feed misinformation to the public.
  6. Benjamin Sirrah from Victoria, Canada writes: This type of news "straight form the horses mouth" is usually proven to be the most reliable and accurate. I would be more inclined to believe the first account from someone on the scene than a well researched, produced and edited news story on a respected news authority.
  7. Alastair james Berry from Nanaimo BC CANADA, Canada writes: Aid agencies could move around the world much more quickly if the USA would get it's CLANDESTINE CIA OPERATIVES out of the volunteers in NGO's. Governments are getting a bit nervous about letting AID AGENCIES have a free hand, particularly after the experiences of Pakistan with the severe earthquake in the N.W. Mountainous area when drones appeared and started firing hell fire rockets specifically at village leaders homes. Responding to disasters quickly and planting operatives and informants in countries, has become something of an art, it seems, in the USA. I have spoken to a chap who was involved some time back with Habitat for Humanity and he came across a volunteer who JUST DID NOT SEEM RIGHT! The CIA have since broadened their recruiting(even advertising in the' ECONOMIST ' for applicants for 'clandestine operations' quite new for an agency that used to be staffed with ex military 30-40 yr olds married with children, who had kept their noses clean during their service. Another characteristic of these operatives is they always pay with cash(ans seem to have a lot of it) as the the FBI and CIA do not like to leave a paper trail
  8. Erik Schomann from Kunming, China, Canada writes: We felt the quake rather severely here in Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province immediately south of Sichuan where the epicentre was reported to have been. We felt it strong enough to think the epicentre was an adjacent county. I'm curious as to how twitter would have been able to locate the epicentre without seizmographic instruments. Or did they simply report that there was an earthquake in SW China and no further details. As for the discussion regarding twitters ability to get around the Chinese censors, it would have to be made available in Chinese first as it is only available, currently, in English and Japanese. Secondly, I live here and none of my Chinese friends and colleagues have ever even heard of twitter. If twitter broke the story, it was likely an expat and not a Chinese person who reported it. Finally, is there really a conflict between twitter type media and more commercially main stream ones like the Globe? I don't think so. That debate, to me is like suggesting people would stop talking because they invented writing (or perhaps the other way around), or that people will stop reading the Star or the Sun because the Globe exists. Twitter and publications like the Globe exist to fill different needs and while they may have commonalities on the surface, they are quite different in the immediate spheres of the products and services provided by each.
  9. della baird from vancouver, Canada writes: dee vancouver: alastair james berry...... i am glad that you have such faith in the former 'habits' of the cia. do not be fooled.these creeps have been around for a long time. i suppose you realise that every posters' words are scrutinized by same. i am not being fascetious(excuse spelling) but found this out from an american site, i cannot remember which one or i would post it. kind of 'creepy ,would'nt you say? so much for freedom!
  10. matt lynch from newcastle, Australia writes: as i said b4

Join the Conversation, Leave a Comment

This conversation is semi-moderated What is moderation? | How do I report a comment?

You must be logged-in to submit a comment — login now!

Not registered with globeandmail.com? Register now. It is quick and free.

close

Alert us about this comment

Please let us know if this reader’s comment breaks the editor's rules and is obscene, abusive, threatening, unlawful, harassing, defamatory, profane or racially offensive by selecting the appropriate option to describe the problem.

Do not use this to complain about comments that don’t break the rules, for example those comments that you disagree with or contain spelling errors or multiple postings.

Back to Ingram 2.0

Back to top