Twittering Mumbai: Citizen Journalism Gets One Step Closer to the Mainstream

Not that long ago people were scoffing at the use of Twitter as viable tool for journalism. Well maybe not so much anymore! The terrorist siege in Mumbai over the weekend has proven once again how useful the mirco-blogging platform can be for reporters. Both the Times and the WSJ have run pieces on it in the last few days (during the height of the attacks we noticed the Times‘ Brian Stelter reaching out to anyone in Mumbai via Twitter). Jay Rosen noted (via Twitter) that the WSJ had managed to do the “Mumbai-on-Twitter story without all the “is this journalism?” hysteria.” Per the Times:

At the peak of the violence, more than one message per second with the word “Mumbai” in it was being posted onto Twitter, a short-message service that has evolved from an oddity to a full-fledged news platform in just two years.

Those descriptions and others on Web sites and photo-sharing sites served as a chaotic but critically important link among people across the world — whether they be Hasidic Jews in Brooklyn tracking the fate of a rabbi held hostage at the Nariman House or students in Britain with loved ones back in India or people hanging on every twist and turn in the standoff while visiting relatives for Thanksgiving dinner.

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