Citizen Journalism and the Mumbai Attacks: "We're All Journalists Now"

Many around the world are referring to the tragedy in Mumbai as "India's 9/11". The blood, horror, and carnage spread by the terrorists does frighten us now, just as it did seven years ago.

In a sense, modern technology made this act of terrorism even more frightening. Because of Twitter, Flickr and other services, people around the world were thrust into first-hand accounts of what was going on, while the big media outlets tried feverishly to keep pace.

Imagine what it would have been like if Twitter and Facebook had been around on the REAL 9/11. People in the towers or on the planes would have been able to let us all know what was really going on.

The question is: Is this necessarily a good thing for journalism?

Robert Creamer, a political organizer and strategist, is a contributor for The Huffington Post. He blogged about two colleagues of his who texted them from Mumbai. As he pondered the significance of this event and its coverage, he identified two key points:

"First, experiencing terrorism -- attacks on innocent civilians -- from the stand point of the victims themselves really drives home in no uncertain terms that it is completely morally repugnant.

"Second, our experience Thursday demonstrated once again how dramatically technology has forced us all into the same neighborhood."

But is this a neighborhood in which we really want to be? Does it do us any good to see raw pictures of dead and bloodied bodies in the streets? Will reading about cold-blooded murder from those who see it firsthand draw people to the news, or push them away?

Even more pressing of a question: Will it inspire future attacks?

Mira Veda, an Indian recording artist, posted her comments on The Huffington Post as well, saying that more coverage of the Mumbai terror will lead to more attacks.

"The ruthless terrorist attacks aimed at high profile luxury establishments in Mumbai were specifically orchestrated towards Britons and Americans to get premium media coverage."

"The tactical and strategic gain for the perpetrators creates an ominous future of fear for us but seems to produce favorable results for them. Every news channel, print media and virtual medium is bombarded with the same message: Fear. Mission successful."

That fear seems to expand with the fact that the terrorists were using modern technology to their advantage. The Courier-Mail out of Queensland, Australia is reporting that the terrorists used BlackBerrys in order to track the news feeds and international reaction of the goings-on.

It is rumored that Indian authorities even asked those on Twitter to stop reporting on the anti-terror operations, so as not to aid the terrorists.

Amy Gahran, a writer on Poynter.org, is exploring the rumor on her blog. In the meantime, she wrote a column on Poynter regarding "Responsible Tweeting". She seeks to educate Twitter users in the finer points of journalism. Essentially she is saying that this request, true or not, is a milestone for citizen journalism.

Again, I wonder if this is necessarily a good thing. What I see on the nightly news or the cable networks is at least edited and somewhat censored (or at least warned about) so I can avoid the graphic nature if I choose to. Being thrust into the scene via Twitter and such puts me in an uncomfortable spot as a news viewer.

Perhaps the most poignant piece on this issue comes from Forbes magazine. They called the Mumbai attacks "Twitter's Moment", thrusting it into the mainstream of journalism. Referring to the rumored self-censorship, Forbes declares:

"If it's true, it's a breakthrough. It's the sort of challenge journalists covering combat have long grappled with: What information should you share? Who decides what you can write? To what end?"

These are questions we have grappled with in our class, and likely still will. To paraphrase Rowdy Roddy Piper, just as we think we have the answers, citizen journalism changes the questions.

The Forbes article (and thus, this blog post) comes to a conclusion we have also come to in our class, and that I have admitted personally from the beginning.

"We're all journalists now. Let's just hope none of us wind up being combat reporters, as so many in Mumbai did this week."