Much has been made about “citizen journalists” on the ground in Mumbai typing 140-character dispatches over Twitter and snapping images with their Nikons or cellphones.
Social media, no doubt, has changed how we receive information and watch stories unfold. Om Malik watched Twitter and yearned for context.
The volume of words sent over a “Twitter #Mumbai” feed the first 24 hours were amazing — even if the majority felt like a mix of rumor, opinion and what was already being reported. Maybe 5 percent of the content fit the category of original eyewitness accounts.
It is a photograph of a terrorist in the CST railway station featured early in a Boston Globe montage (and shared on Twitter) stands as the most memorable and original reportage. The photographer, Sebastian D’souza, is a professional photo editor whose work was distributed worldwide via the Associated Press. D’souza’s eyewitness account in the U.K. press is worth a read.
As of Friday, a flickr account under a Sebastian D’souza included images any tourist might have taken in Mumbai. None of the photos qualified as hard-boiled news journalism. By Sunday, the flickr page was gone.
