If you think the media is all over OBL’s death, then you’ll be in for a surprise as to how the Social Media world has reacted. They went from strength to strength with the amount of information they provided. It became almost impossible to keep up with tweets (5,106 tweets per second reportedly), with information, with Facebook links and posts. And there is no doubt in how genuine the information being thrown our way was at that point. It was information that was not being provided to us by any other outlet and thus, it became hot news. It all of course, began with a “mistaken” tweet which led to the wires going fanatical with unknown, unsourced information. I’m not sure how legitimate the information we receive via Social Media is but I do know that even news channels and publications are taking to the information they receive and see on Social Media sites. They are acting on it and following up on it as soon as they can to verify it before publishing it on their sites.
How is it affecting news? Well it is actually making news, believe it or not. Social Media is a source of news nowadays. Information filters from person to person and then straight to Social Media. In this case, yet again, it was no different. Mashable went on to poll the very question: “How did you hear of the death of OBL?” The results depicted that close to 30% of those who voted “heard” the information through Twitter. This was the largest number with Facebook coming a close second at 20%. This speaks for itself. The television is no long a single source of information for big news. Welcome to the new age!
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