A debate with Ted Koppel about Iran and Twitter

It's undeniable how riveting the coverage has been about the Iranian election fallout over the past week. Images of violent unrest from Tehran are available just about everywhere we go in our connected world.

Where did you first hear about it? I'm willing to bet most of you didn't get the story eating your toast over the morning paper.

Social networks have begun to take on a whole new purpose in the past year as the big media channels are beginning to pay attention to the speed and efficiency of the crowd when it comes to news distribution.

Can social media channels like Twitter be an instrument of journalism?

I had an opportunity to discuss the role social media plays with news icon Ted Koppel to look for the answer.

Ted Koppel
I was out in Orlando at the CCA conference all of last week. I had the good fortune to attend the Awards Brunch where Ted Koppel gave the conference keynote address.

Mr. Koppel lit up the room with a very powerful speech regarding the state of the nation and the recent changes we've seen in media in the past several years. Fortunately, I began recording the speech from my iPhone (using the Recorder application) so you can hear some of his thoughts regarding social media, especially Twitter.

Safely put, Mr. Koppel is not a fan of Twitter. My sense is that he is not fully informed about what's beneath the surface of "totally useless, irrelevant information" as he put it. He also spoke about the older method of news distribution he favors which allows for a three day process of script to final release.

My question for discussion to Mr. Koppel was about the opportunities of crowd-powered media and how it could continue to develop into a resource for journalism. I knew that my disagreement with him regarding Twitter wasn't going to be very popular, which made for a bit of laughter.

Give it to me raw
Mr. Koppel responding by questioning the source of the information that flows on Twitter. For all of us, trust is always an issue whether you get your news from your neighbor or CNN. I agree that careful consideration must be taken when it comes to journalism and it's sources, but I'm not willing to throw out the role of the common person at the scene of the story. I know that I'm not alone in feeling that big media grew too big, and in some cases, became too connected to government and/or corporations' interests to play a completely independent role.

The grainy images that come through a cellphone video capture tell a sober story with no dilution or news slant. The messages are not always slickly produced or delivered from a good-looking anchor, but who decided that's how news should be provided anyway?

On the other hand, news shouldn't be a free-for-all either, there must be a balance between delivering a timely, relevant story or happening and not overproducing it. Most importantly, we don't want to end up with is a situation where a reporter's bias can effect the viewer or listener as in the case of Peter Jennings.

In 1986 Brian Mullen, a professor at Syracuse University conducted a study that concluded that Jennings, then ABC anchor, "exhibited a facial expression bias in favor of [Ronald] Reagan" and the Republican party upon review of videotapes leading up to both the 1984 and 1988 Presidential Elections. It wasn't the story that showed the bias, it was Jennings' facial expressions. These subconscious signals of communication often do more to influence the viewer or listener than the story itself.

We are the world
In the case of the Iranian election, government has begun to crack down on journalists. Without an informer providing updates on what's happening between both sides, where does that leave us? If it weren't for the people on the ground sending images, videos and opinions about the violence and unrest the world would be none the wiser - and that is scary.

At some point all big media channels will have to take a serious look at how social media channels can plug into their news model. Many stations such as CNN already have a connection to the crowd and anyone who is aware of the story in Iran must admit, in this case the common man or woman in Tehran, cellphone in hand, is their beat reporter.

Today's internet has graduated beyond mere static web pages complete with RSS news feeds, media sharing and social network platforms that allow us to not only participate in discussion but to contribute to the flow of media and the daily happenings we call 'news.' Businesses large and small are now media creators. Anyone with a laptop or iPhone can become as important as the largest corporate or political news interest story. Google has been called the 'great equalizer,' but the true owner to the title is the connected crowd.

Our role in the distribution process happens while we're often not conscious of it. In the past we would go to, for instance, CNN, Yahoo or Google News to get the latest news from around the globe. Those platforms are alive and well today, but they must make room for the major player called the connected web. Our distribution channel lacks the polish of a shiny logo or brand, but we pack a punch when it comes to what news really should be - the unbiased transfer of current events from one source to another.

Microblogging platforms such as Twitter get a bad reputation for people's tendency to share vapid, meaningless information, but there is just as much of that 'useless, irrelevant information' floating out of the glimmering news sets of all of the big media channels. The discussion of topics as useful as Paris Hilton's dog or OctoMom's shopping trip litter the airwaves, so it's an even split from that angle.

The distribution cycle of video-enabled smartphones and lightning-quick laptops connecting users to each other begins with a polished ad usually depicting a stress-free, utopian business world or family at the park. In Tehran, these tools are being used to display the violence and chaos in a world far from the dreamscape images used to sell them.

A massive crowd of people, empowered with these same tools, is spread out all over the globe as you read this. These people are more nimble than any journalist team could ever be because they can mobilize at a given moment, without corporate motives, no matter what the situation. We're still in the ugly duckling stage of social media as a news entity. There must be a system in place to check the facts and validate the source and/or their story. This will be a reality sooner than you think.

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