Does BBC News feel threatened by amateur journalism on Social Networking sites?
This weekend, on Saturday 20th June 2009, the people of Iran rose up in protest against a regime they believed had rigged the recent national election so denying the people of their right to democracy. Those on the streets organized and relayed real time videos, images and messages, documenting events in real time to the world, via social networking sites such as Twitter, YouTube and Facebook . However, news reporters were banned from attending unauthorized gatherings and from moving around freely and were therefore unable to report on developments as first hand witnesses.
As the afternoon progressed #iranelection activity on Twitter became overwhelming, with supposedly first hand updates of clashes in multiple areas throughout the nation and warnings that hospitals had become police traps and that the injured should be taken to European embassies instead. Most poignant, though, were the videos being uploaded to YouTube which appeared to provide graphic evidence of widespread unrest and deaths in various locations resulting from police brutality. The most upsetting of these was a video documenting the fatal shooting of a 16 year old girl who had been standing beside her father. Reported to have been shouting, “freedom,” her name is said to be Neda which means, voice in Farsi. Into the night, as Twitter activity became feverish, Neda became the voice of the cause and the people’s movement symbol.
Unsurprisingly, early on Saturday the CNN and BBC news portals, unable to bear first hand witness to events, seemed to be reporting minor protests with little or no confrontation. What seemed to be startling to those reading the Twitter feeds and watching the YouTube videos was the enormous gulf between the nature of events as reported by those on the ground via social networking sites compared to their nature as reported on the official TV News portals. In fact, on the BBC website developments in Iran had been delegated to the number three news story, signifying it had been rated as of lesser relative importance.
Nevertheless, as afternoon turned to evening CNN began to cover events as posted on Twitter and even to show some of the less graphic videos uploaded to sites such as YouTube. What is highly relevant here is that in all cases they stated and re-stated that the reports were unconfirmed and that their sources were journalistic amateurs uploading or posting to social networking sites.
By Sunday morning the Story rated as number one on CNN and almost all reporting was attributed to information gathered from social networking sites. However, this was in stark contrast to events, as reported by the BBC, where the story still did not rate as number one and where the main web write up, in it’s opening sentence quoted sources from Iranian TV as reporting that ten people, described as being from terrorist groups, had been killed in Iran. There was no mention at all of any information uploaded or posted on Twitter or YouTube or any other social networking site. The article stated that, “Reports of Saturday’s violence cannot be verified as foreign media in Iran are being severely restricted,” and that, “Witness accounts on Saturday suggested police used live rounds, batons, tear gas and water cannon to break up demonstrations which went on late into the night.”
No doubt the BBC will defend it’s blanking of social networking sites by claiming them to be unreliable sources from which information cannot be validated. Herein, though, lays the double standard. How have the BBC substantiated the validity of information taken from Iranian TV sources? Surely, if this information can be reported as having been gathered from a source other than the BBC, so then can that gathered from social networking portals. Surely news of the video of the dying 16 year old girl Neda, uploaded to YouTube, deserved to be transmitted to the world by its most trusted News portal. Surely the BBC needs to get to grips with new technology and take the public at their word, even if on occasion they get it wrong. In my opinion, on this occasion, CNN got it right by covering itself, in the eventuality that the stories taken from social network portals could not later be substantiated.
Social Networking is not going away. It enables the people to tell the story of what is taking place to the world and it makes that story ever more human. It’s here to complement and enhance traditional reporting not to replace or threaten it. In times of extreme unrest and danger, when traditional journalism becomes impossible, do not the people have the right to tell the world their story?
Mahatma Gandhi said, “What you cannot do is accept injustice…You must make the injustice visible – be prepared to die like a soldier to do so.” The brave people of Iran who took the YouTube videos on flimsy cell phones, and then risked their very lives uploading them in internet cafes took that very risk in order to call out to the world for help. Our much beloved BBC let them down.
Update 1 - by 4.30PM Sunday amateur videos being shown on BBC website but not on front page – still no prominent mention of social networking sites- There are now unsubstantiated reports that social networking sites are inaccessible in Tehran.
Update 2- 10PM Sunday 21 June - BBC broadcasts stills from Neda video on 10PM news - Allelujah - and thank you
Sandra Charan
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