Tag: Journalism

Twitter and the Birmingham (ish) Earthquake.

twitterquake

I thought I was going mad – but only if Jon is too. We both know that twitter knows best and (thanks again jon) the Dutch are tracking the story for us.

Update 3 Jo Geary found this link – 4 earthquakes dotted arou nd the country – nearest is Nottingham. Beats phoning the police press line.

Update 4: Others experienced it in similar ways with confirmation coming through twitter of similar.

https://johnleach.co.uk/words/archives/2008/02/27/300/

Should I laugh at “Well, either a fat bloke just fell out of bed or there has been a minor earth tremor in
Nottingham“? In Leeds Ross at Democracypr tells us: “And the BBC web site? A note on the ticker – “Reports of tremor felt in West Midlands. More details soon.”
No need to bother, I’ve found out all I need use my own network of citizen journalists.”

Update: 01.33 Lisa Dowd on Sky tells us that because she can’t get through to the police she can’t really tell what has happened and only new it was an earthquake because she felt it last time – the Dudley earthquake. Get social Lisa – we can tell you what’s going on.

Update: 01.35 Joanna has google map up with epicentre before sky know what’s what.

Citizen or Journalist – the evidence remains the same.

It’s become a journalistic cliche – the crew or photographer who film police misbehaving and then have to hide the evidence or have it destroyed. Curiously enough that now appears to have become an ‘occupational’ hazard for citizen journalists.

Kimberley Michaelson writes how witnesses to an alleged police beating in Chicago were told to delete their mobile phone pics and footage or face the same treatment.

It helps me edge toward another element of a definition of a journalist (whether citizen or not) as someone who has evidence and shares it. Of course that would rule out loads of columnists and other writers and rule in a bunch of legal professionals. No probs there.

Hat tip and much more to Geoff Dougherty who is the Editor supporting Kimberley and other online citizen journalists in Cjicago.