Twitter's reporting of the G20 Marches - who got the truth?

Management Today's Editor has a fairly standard mainstream media go at Twitter's news reporting:

News editors at the national newspapers have been desperate to keep up with the Joneses, i.e their proper broadcast media rivals, in offering up-to-the-minute G20 news of the crusties and anti-capitalist protestors surging on the Bank of England, busting into branches of RBS, and trying to knock policemen's helmets off. They've gone for Twitter because it's The New Thing, and because they don't have the resources in their depleted budgets to do it properly.

This is all no doubt true to some extent, but the bit below misses the point:

The result is an unwholesome mess - a garbled Babel of nonsense that leaves you screaming for a return to the times when we could read all about it the day afterwards over our Cornflakes on a page of newsprint. Both The Times and Guardian are guilty of this mindless dumbing down in the search for 'authenticity' in the form of immediacy. 'Jump against the war is the cry' squeaks one Tweeting twerp. 'AudioBoo. Turning nasty is.gd' another. Even the FT has succumbed with 'I can see the FT office from here.' Give me strength.

We've been very rude about Twiiter in the past, or more accurately rude about the people who claim Twitter could solve every problem known to man, but to be even handed and annoy both sides, let us also deride those who just don't get it.

Reading a Twitterstream is best if you are seeing the whole forest, not tree by tree. I kept an eye on the #G20 stream yesterday, and it was very interesting to contrast the impression I got from it compared to mainstream media:

Mainstream Media Story:

Crusties! Broken Windows! Vandals! Angry Crowds! Pictures of Window Smashers! etc! etc! In some of the newspapers some allusion to the peacefulnesss and good spirit of the vast majority appeared by paragraph 5 or so, but the main aim was to pitch sensational conflict.

Twitter Story

Most of the marchers were there to be seen and make a point that they expected the G20 and the UK Government to make a difference, most were not surly and hostile (many were hopeful) and very few were involved in breaking glass or scuffles - most in fact were unhappy with the crusties' behaviour and those breaking glass at RBS ("what's the point - we already own it" was a typical thought)

There was also quite a lot of observation in the Twitterstream that photographers and media far outnumbered the people who actually broke anything (Journalists Occupy RBS! was one post) and photos like this one went up.

No surprises to those who understand that the mass media sells via sensationalism at the expense of balance or sometimes even truth (which we believe is contributing to its agonising demise) - but it does sometimes help to remind those who would mark these early alternative channels of the risks of sticking to the mainstream.

I'll be the first to admit that tyese streams take a bit of practice and time to read today, but it will get better, that is one certainty in this new media space