Social Media’s Pivot from News
Slate News
Slate Podcasts
4.5 • 6K Ratings
🗓️ 3 September 2023
⏱️ 26 minutes
🧾️ Download transcript
Summary
It wasn’t long ago when social media was a place to go for up-to-the-minute updates in an emergency. But even as internet access is more widespread than ever—and natural disasters more frequent—Twitter and Facebook are less useful than ever. As hubs for news, that era appears over.
Guest: Will Oremus, tech reporter for the Washington Post.
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Transcript
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| 0:00.0 | This is what it looks like in the early hours in the Tampa Bay area as Hurricane |
| 0:08.4 | Adalia gets closer to landfall. Storm surges beginning to flood some roads and |
| 0:13.2 | water is already beginning to rise up buildings in Gulfport. |
| 0:17.2 | Earlier this week, as Hurricane Adalia made landfall, I couldn't help but think |
| 0:22.6 | about what it was like to cover a natural disaster just a few years ago. |
| 0:27.6 | I've been in several hurricanes and other disasters and during those times, I'd |
| 0:32.8 | often find myself turning to social media to get the latest news. |
| 0:37.2 | You would be on Twitter during an event like that, refreshing constantly seeing |
| 0:42.8 | the latest pictures that are people are uploading from their homes, seeing |
| 0:47.7 | the latest news reports, seeing news organizations often sort of live |
| 0:52.8 | blogging it and linking to their coverage. |
| 0:57.8 | That's Will Aremus, a reporter at the Washington Post. Will wrote about the role |
| 1:02.7 | that social networks have played in our modern disasters. |
| 1:06.8 | Twitter in a disaster could turn into basically a real-time news feed. |
| 1:11.5 | Facebook wasn't quite that rapid fire, but for ordinary people who weren't on |
| 1:17.3 | Twitter, they would go to Facebook and see what they're with their friends and |
| 1:21.6 | family were safe and in the process they would look at what news was being |
| 1:25.5 | shared from different localities and again, click through read stories, find |
| 1:31.6 | out the latest and like every emergency services office would be on |
| 1:37.1 | area. For public agencies that are trying to communicate with the public in |
| 1:42.6 | a disaster, social media was a double-edged sword because on social media, |
| 1:49.3 | rumor and misinformation and speculation could spread, but at the same time, |
... |
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