Ketchum, my employer, recently published the latest edition of its online magazine, Perspectives. Some previous posts I created for this blog have been combined and updated for one of the key articles of the magazine.
Check out the article if you:
Last week’s dramatic, dangerous and bizarre situation at the Discovery Channel headquarters served as another reminder for the need to be ready to respond to senseless and unpredictable workplace violence.
It was also a reminder that social networks are designed to scoop the media in the initial stages of an emerging crisis. Some of the obvious reasons for this were captured in this story in The Washington Post. Best callout:
Before camera crews and reporters could race to the scene, a shot of alleged hostage-taker James Lee was flashing around the world via Twitpic, Twitter’s photo-sharing service that lets people see whatever a cellphone camera captures seconds after the shutter snaps. The shot — full of menace and dread — was apparently taken by an office worker peering from a window several floors above the Discovery courtyard. The photo was apparently passed from an unidentified Discovery employee to another, who posted it on Twitpic.
Social networks “scooping” traditional news will continue and grow more common. Some have tagged this as trend as “citizen journalism.” I don’t like that tag. “Journalism” typically provides context and has an embedded editorial process. Instead, I prefer the term “citizen broadcasting” for these types of real-time alerts.
Depending on the type of crisis, “citizen broadcasting” can be a good or bad thing for the public.
