Like many Victorians today, I have been closely following the story about the use supplements by the Essendon Football Club. While the newspapers had the story it was old news by the time ink hit newsprint last night. Crikey provided genuinely fresh coverage in its email news bulletin at lunchtime. I’d rate Crikey’s report by Andrew Crook as the best coverage so far.
I was on the road through the day and found Twitter to be more useful, and entertaining, than radio. I was flicking between 3AW, ABC Local and SEN. Indeed, the radio coverage felt tired compared to what I could access through Twitter. The challenge, however, with Twitter is reliability for news. Sure the fun tweets are a hoot but when it comes to news you need to check around before you believe something that’s explosive.
I’ve not seen TV coverage but I suspect it would be tired as well in part because of AFL connections but also primarily of lead times.
This story has many twists and turns and many players (excuse the pun). This is where social media works best because of the broad range of contacts who could have the tiniest bit of information. Yes, it can lead to less than accurate information being published. It can also lead to better and faster news coverage. We have to be our won filters.
My phone was the best delivery medium for the day thanks to access to Crikey and Twitter.
Print news publishers can protest all they like about fact checking and our desire for curated content. Immediate access even part of a story is more important for some news stories than a more objective piece you can wait hours or days for.