Talk About A Revolution

June 15th 2009 was a strange day. Hundreds of thousands, possibly over a million, people on the streets in Iran protesting over the election results that the protesters thought had been rigged. Is this the start of a revolution? I am writing this a day later and I do not know.

What I do know is that the way it was perceived here in the west was very different to how it would have been just a year ago and that was at least in part down to twitter. During the day there were accounts that had decent claims to being genuine voices from Tehran keeping the world updated on events and managing to get photo and video files out to support their claims. So persuasive were these voices that they were getting the traditional news media to follow what they were saying almost in priority to their own on the spot journalists and traditional sources.

This was the true revolution of June 15th. As information was coming out of Iran it was being viewed by thousands and then resent (retweeted) so that it would be viewed by even more. All of this in pretty much real time and it had nothing to do with the large news agencies. In fairness to the news agencies they are beginning to catch on however there is resistance to what they see as their position as the true arbiters of quality reporting.

This is a tweet from Jeff Jarvis from the afternoon of 15th June "I emphasized to a reporter today that Twitter is not the news source. It's a source of tips & temperature & sources. Reporting follows." Also from his site (posted June 15th) comes the following on the way that the NY Times operates "Because The Times’ brand hinges on it as a product that has been curated and edited and checked and polished - note editor Bill Keller’s language on The Daily Show about his package - it finds itself in dangerous territory trying to compete in real time with those whose brand expectations are entirely different."

According to the Bio on his site Jeff is associate professor and director of the interactive journalism program at the City University of New York’s new Graduate School of Journalism. Well I have news for you Jeff, if you think that any news organisation can get it perfectly right and polished you are deluded and yesterday provided the perfect example.

This is what the editor of the curated and edited and checked and polished New York Times had to say in the early hours of June 15th

Leader Emerges With Stronger Hand

By BILL KELLER and MICHAEL SLACKMAN

Published: June 15, 2009

President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s victory demonstrated that he is the shrewd front man for an elite more unified than at any time since 1979.

Whilst you would now have to subscribe to read the article I can tell you that it was proclaiming that it was a done deal and the middle classes were in Iran were resigned to their fate. Just how wrong can you get it.

So here is the news for you Jeff and for all of those journalists who wish to believe that they are a special breed gifted with superhuman insight and the ability to distill a story for general public consumption. The twitter community and its successors will beat you to the story every time. Furthermore, they will be the people who are the experts in the field and, shock horror, they may even be able to string a sentence or two together. Then the story will be out there and if it gains a following it will spread like wild fire.

This does not mean that journalists are an endangered species, just that they are going to be changing the way they operate in the future. As with any source of information there will be the good, the bad and the disingenuous - these will need to be checked and validated.

Following on from that, there will be the need to draw in comment from other domain experts who are not necessarily directly involved in the main proceedings, for example David Miliband, the UK Foreign Minister, was interviewed on BBC Radio 4 in the morning of 16th June for the UK government's view on the events in Iran. This could not have been done via social networking systems on the Internet.

A news organisation and the journalists working for them can act as a ringmaster in an ever changing circus of events. Constantly watching the crowd to see the news as it unfolds and vetting the shouts from the audience to allow those who have something valuable to say to step into the ring whilst at the same time getting involvement from those who can be invited directly to the ring from outside. They can then step in and lead that conversation rather in the manner of anenormous audience participation show. That, I believe is the future of journalism.