Twitter was alive with the breaking news late this afternoon (December 21, 2010) of an armed distraught woman entering a TV station in Charlotte, NC causing it go off the air. As I’m reading the following from TheLostRemote about Blair Miller, the WSOC-TV’s anchor of the 5 o’clock news, tweeting the breaking news live from his Twitter account on his iPhone, I kept thinking about the Fox 4 News in Dallas and their parody of the use of social media in news organizations. While their city hall shooting was a fictional scenario, the situation in Charlotte was very real and serious.
The WSOC-TV situation showed how social media can be used to get the word out when traditional channels of media are shutdown. News doesn’t take a break. The mobility of social media allowed the news to continue to be broadcast. The tools are simple: smart phone, data plan with signal or wi-fi, a Twitter/Facebook/Tumblr account, and the mindfulness in the moment to be able to type away. The platform of ustream was used to broadcast updates from the scene. The technology may not be smooth and polished as of yet, but when breaking news is happening, it does the job.
With every crisis, information is important. And every crisis communications plan should have all information channels available to get information out on.
I don’t think the Fox 4 News in Dallas had any idea how close their parody would be to real life.
