New Yorkers began checking in to Ground Zero and sharing/tweeting pictures soon after President Obama announced Bin Laden was dead. (Image credit: @Mikeboy2)
We reached a tipping point Sunday night. One that will go down as comparable to Walter Cronkite’s TV newscasts during World War II, the 2000 presidential election coverage online, CNN.com’s iReport and Janus Krum’s picture of the U.S. Airways plane crash in the Hudson River.
Last night we witnessed a permanent change in the way we as Americans communicate and share the biggest news events of our time:
- From when the tweets began about a special announcement from the president
- To when President Obama announced Osama Bin Laden had been killed
- To when people flooded the streets to celebrate and began checking in at the White House and Ground Zero
All signs pointed to the fact that we were witnessing change. This was different. And from now on, the way we watch news will be permanently integrated between on TV, online and on our social network(s) of choice. Stories like Bin Laden’s death have taken on a life of their own. And public consumption of them via just one channel is no longer enough. Our expectations have changed.
Consider the following progression of event’s Sunday night:
- Dan Pfeiffer, the White House communications director, tweets “POTUS to address the nation tonight at 10:30 p.m. Eastern Time”
- Networks announce on TV and via Twitter that Obama is going to make a special announcement
- Retweets and Facebook shares of the announcement time begin
- A few minutes before the scheduled announcement, major networks break the story that Bin Laden is dead
- On CNN, Wolf Blitzer actually tried to wait and let Obama announce it even though he knew what the news was, but then John King came on and blurted it out (one of few funny parts of the night)
- Conversation blows up online — Mashable says there have been more than 12 million Bin Laden tweets per hour over the last 24 hours
- New York Times online publishes the first story recounting the news and Obama’s announcement
- Networks show video of people gathering around White House singing Star Spangled Banner
- Osama Bin Laden is dead Facebook page goes viral and has 120,000 likes just an hour after the announcement
- Now at almost 450,000 likes
- People begin checking in at Ground Zero, posting pictures to Twitter and Facebook
- New elements of the story continue to be divulged on TV, online and on social networks
During the 2008 election, it seemed like the way we watch and share news was starting to change. This year during the Super Bowl and the Oscars, I noticed I was missing out on part of the story by not being on Twitter during the broadcast.
But Sunday night, we didn’t have a choice. The story was integrated across mediums for us by the networks and our peers. It was a story that everyone in the United States was watching. And there were millions of “reporters” across the country sharing pieces of it.
That’s how these news stories are going to be told from now on. The multichannel convergence of media is becoming mainstream. And more than ever before, it’s becoming apparent that the news itself — told from a multitude of official and citizen sources — is what the American public really cares about, and in fact, expects.
- Did you notice a change Sunday night?
- Will you ever watch a big news story again without picking up the computer?
- How much of a role did social media play in the coverage of Bin Laden’s death that you consumed?
JG, love this topic, and we are absolutely witnessing a fundamental shift in how news is shared/consumed, specifically around TV. Even how "non news" is shared and consumed, but this example is a great one. People no longer want to just hear what the news is, they want to hear what everyone else "thinks" of the news, discuss it, dissect it and digest it. Not only are people finding OUT about big news online (I woke up Monday morning, heard President Obama talking on the radio, had no clue what happened, and went to Twitter, not cnn.com) but they are now using SM as their own personal soap box to weigh in and debate the impact, etc. It's going to be paramount for television outlets to harness and foster these discussions in order to succeed long term, because sooner or later, people will be spending more time talking about (and consuming) the news online, rather than watching it on their TV's. If TV is going to keep eyeballs where they need them, they're going to have to embrace social media, and that means more than just publishing random tweets and posts with reactions.
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Likejaykeith "It's going to be paramount for television outlets to harness and foster these discussions in order to succeed long term, because sooner or later, people will be spending more time talking about (and consuming) the news online, rather than watching it on their TV's."
Couldn't have said it better, my friend. Heard recently that The Rachel Maddow Show has created an iPad app where viewers can interact with other viewers while watching the show on TV. I think we're only going to see more examples like that -- at least from the TV shows that understand and embrace the change.
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LikeI'm with you Justin. I think this was the tipping point. Others think it was the Hudson River plane crash, but that story pales in comparison to the news we got of Osama bin Laden being killed on Sunday night. I had made the decision to not turn on my computer on Sunday, so once I found out about the story I followed along on my phone, thus doing a lot more RTing than original tweeting. That said, I definitely would have missed out on a lot if I hadn't been looking in on Twitter. I find that my enjoyment of live broadcasts like sporting events, and now breaking news events, just isn't complete without social networks.
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LikeMattLaCasse I think you nailed it in the last paragraph. "I find that my enjoyment of live broadcasts like sporting events, and now breaking news events, just isn't complete without social networks."
Are expectations and behaviors around news consumption have changed and there's no turning back. There were several signs along the way, but Sunday night confirmed it once and for all.
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