Twitter saves the day...maybe

By: Katie Anthony

While many would argue that the journalists strive to show, rather than tell, I believe there to be a fine line between showing what's necessary and showing it all.

By now, everyone knows that I'm not a huge fan of negative news-though I've become used to it because that type of news is the majority of the news.

Yet, when I was looking for a blog topic this week, I stumbled across "Citizen Journalists Provide Glimpes Into Attacks."

This article falls back on the information that was put on Twitter the day that the Taj Mahal Palace and Taj Hotel were attacked.

Many reporters tapes, cell phones, and any other means of information were confiscated after the attacks for evidence, yet some citizens-now seen as "citizen journalists"-were able to keep their cell phones that held short recordings of the burning of these buildings.

In situations like these, the line is truly fine, and I think the line was crossed in this case. While the public had a desire to be informed, I don't think that a minute-by-minute picture of burning buildings is the most effective way to get their message and information across.

In fact, I'd argue that just replaying the pictures/video the news have, would be more than sufficient as long as they're relaying new information as its given to them. That's how they informed the public about the 9/11 attacks, so I think that in the case of the Mumbai attacks, the same rules need to be applied.