When mere whispers stir big storms on social media

Sometimes though, instead of just muttering on social media and creating unnecessary ripples, it would be far more fruitful if the complaints were taken directly to the source, where something can actually be done. 

Last week, a dispute broke out between IT bloggers and IT journalists over social media. The wrangle began when an IT blogger updated his status, saying someone at a recent IT press event disturbed his daily productivity. His complaint was, correctly or incorrectly, considered to be referring to one of the two IT journalists who also attended the same event. It must be noted that there were just three individuals attending this event. 

Soon, this litter murmur on Facebook and Twitter suddenly became a big dispute between two groups of people – IT bloggers and IT journalists – not to mention other social-media users. Obviously, this argument had magnified unnecessarily and only came to an end when both sides stopped posting. 

This case should teach all stakeholders in the IT media ecosystem that it may be time for them to make adjustments so everybody can live and work together. This includes not just bloggers and journalists but also companies and PR agencies. 

Since the Internet, especially social media, offers people more choices when it comes to accessing news and information, traditional media and journalists have to make adjustments and realise that they need to maintain quality when it comes to serving a fragmented audience. 

This change in the way news is getting consumed has been happening across the globe. 

The influence of alternative media, especially blogs and websites, is growing vastly across media platforms. This is one of the key concerns of mainstream media and a frequent topic in seminars.

In these times, mainstream media is faced with some strong challenges and needs to make changes in terms of improving their coverage, keeping pace with bloggers and citizen journalists and at the same time, maintaining quality and integrity. 

At the 65th World Newspaper Congress, held in Bangkok last year, Jeff Jarvis – the speaker for the “Future of Journalism” session – said journalists had to work with the public and other parties in the online ecosystem. 

In his blog (buzzmachine.com), he says there are no journalists, just people taking part in journalism. 

He points out that nowadays anybody can become a journalist – be it a witness sharing news directly with the world; an expert explaining data without the need for gatekeepers; a whistleblower shining the light on secret documents; or basically anybody who shares information with everyone. 

The challenge from this phenomenon is how journalists accept the fact that they need to make adjustments to the way they work so they can embrace the Internet and social media perfectly.