News

My last post mentioned the current events in Iran.

It is big news, no denying it...

I think the larger story, if that is possible, is the shift we are all witnessing in news and media.


We are at the moment when technology overtakes our current information media structure.


If you have been paying attention to the events in Iran then you have likely been introduced to Twitter, assuming that you were not already dialed in.

News channels are struggling to keep up with the information and misinformation being spilled out of Iran.
The din of reports from a channel that has been the domain of techies and early adopters is, nearly, the sole basis of reports of the events from a country largely secluded from the west for more than two decades.

Protests of the election results have been almost entirely coordinated with a micro-blogging platform designed to let self-involved associates connect.


I have been watching Twitter develop for a bit now.
At work, we have been setting up Twitter feeds for conferences. They are typically only at meetings dealing directly with technology and almost entirely ignored by attendees.
Myopia excludes audience interaction, it seems.


Yet the story of this mentionable upheaval in a closed society brings things to the fore...


Typical information and news outlets are at a loss as to how to discern truth from fiction, as noted by thousands of eyes on the ground.


This is the second bit of revolution that has been a product of the micro/macro-blogging phenomenon, if you have been paying attention.
This just went down in South America, as well.


I have not even begun to digest the rotations of heads at CNN, the NYTimes, et al...
The game has changed.
Push media had posted me on the Iranian election death toll long before I picked up my first paper for the day. At least I think so, though it is as impossible for me to know as it is for the "experts" at any news channel.

I am equally at a loss as to how I filter all of this.


Maybe this seems too abstract to be concerning, but what would you have thought of the vote counts between Al and W, in Dade county, if you were exposed to a thousand messages of concern?
What would you have heard on CNN?
Where would the world's press have put out in response to voters being turned away, if they heard it was happening - as it happened.


Our understanding of current events in Iran is almost completely based on the reports from Twitter, and the thousands of RT's from everybody else. Information from people at the ends of clubs, as well as mis-information from those holding them, along with a concerted effort to cut all of it off.
Reports of violence, of disruptions of service in cell coverage, cuts in internet access and violence continue to pump out of Iran.


Who do you believe?
Who is Anderson Cooper getting his information from?
Where is the truth?
What is your perception?