Face-to-Face with the iWorld

Today I come across this tit-for-tat, made for the media, Crossfire journalism moment between Ann Curry and Rick Sanchez over the value of Twitterverse coverage from Iran and the perception that the "mainstream" media is overlooking the event (or even suppressing it). There's a nice piece on the debate from the New York Observer that I got from another journalist's Twitter feed. (Really, you'd have been somehow disappointed if I just happened on the link.)

Money quote from Curry at the bottom, advising the Tweet generation on how to cover:
"I want you, whether you're in the Congo or Darfur or if you're in Iran or if you're in Tanzania, Kosovo, places we've gone to, you shoot that story like it's your mother, your brother, your sister, your father and your cousin and you tell that in that way because that's actually the road, I think, to not only clarity and truth and understanding. But I think it's also the road to really fully becoming global."

That's some really solid iMedia convergence advice for the strangers in a strange land. But what about us mere mortals who don't get the chance to walk the streets of Teharan?

Well, we're relying on each other. And basic faith that what we see, hear or view from citizens is not part of some massive disinformation campaign (always 1984 plausible, but Ocham's Razor not likely).

Like tonight. Sure, if I wasn't working on projects, I could have watched the Fayetteville Government Channel cablecast of the as anticipated contentious city council meeting. But it was a lot easier to read and contrast the official Tweets from the city @accessfay against the one media outlet that was providing flowing coverage @fvilleflyer.

I'm changing my terms, and encouraging others, to what I said in that account: flowing coverage. It wasn't streamed, like a statistical feed. It wasn't terribly reflective, like live blog postings. It was a play-by-play, called by the person there at the pace of the event. A flowing account, that when all the Tweets 140 character bursts are amassed give me a reasonable first write through of the event.

Isn't that the essence of journalism?

Sort of. What will separate that stream of consciousness from Facebook wall postings is a follow-up tomorrow morning by one of the Flyer's staff -- if that happens.

Tonight, I've got a pretty good feel for the main topic -- a rezoning near the Fayetteville National Cemetery -- and what will happen next -- a table hold on the first reading. Sure, I'll skim the regular media tomorrow, but the likelihood is the person who writes the after event coverage in the traditional media won't be the person who Tweeted it.

Here's the opening for the iMedia -- that disconnect between the Tweet and the journalist report -- can be united into a somewhat seamless progression of collection of information into a finished product.

Sports gets it. The more aggressive reporters covering the Razorbacks are taking our lead. We Tweet the event (well, as much as the NCAA's 2007 based blogging rules allow from a credential holder in the CWS) along with the streams. That allows the end user to decide if they have the ability to watch the event, or listen, or follow the stats. Or catch up only with the mobile updates. Then, those impressions, those notes, those play-by-play moments are stitched together into game stories, columns and features on the main website.

Raw coverage gets value added, and the end user interested in what you are covering will seek it out.

Additional strength comes from the Tweets. Reach back to your term paper days. What teacher believed your facts without footnotes? The real-time note taking of the event -- the Tweets -- are the transparency to your coverage. Oooh, the readers say, that's how he going to get back to the starting point in Iran and how CNN is getting reamed on-line.

CNN certainly got burned hard by it's citizen reporters in the past, and perhaps isn't seeing the ability to add that extra layer by gleaning not only from the native peoples on the ground -- whether that's Iran or a Razorback football fan -- but also by showing us what their reporters are thinking about what they are seeing.

Show us how the sausage is made. If the ingredients are quality, we will ask for seconds.

If you're putting crap into the casings, well, that's why the old cliche has merit.