Q&A: how the Sydney siege was reported by the public and news professionals
Australian media academic Julie Posetti watched the coverage of the tragic Sydney siege break on Twitter late at night from Paris, where she is on secondment from the University of Wollongong as a Research Fellow with the World Association of News Publishers and the World Editors Forum. Here she discusses the way the drama was reported in a cross-posting from The Conversation.
1. How did you follow the drama as it developed?
As the situation evolved, I engaged in discussion on Twitter with journalists reporting the hostage crisis. I also discussed events with other observers. Of course, these events no longer unfold in a local silo and neither does communication of those events rely exclusively on mainstream media reporters bound by traditional publication deadlines.
This means that it’s possible to remotely observe local coverage in real-time. And it’s also possible to curate a rich news feed in the context of a developing crisis – one where media reports from individual journalists and their news brands intermingle with the observations of witnesses and official sources, such as police and emergency services.
I’m only a punter in this, not in the profession. But, as a punter I was pretty shocked at the ABC/SBS coverage. It was way way over the top, it was intrusive beyond my expectations, it was vacuous in the fullest sense (live cuts to journalists who used hyperbole to say “nothing happened”) and it feels to me like it has “fed the beast”
I’m drawn to the parallels with Diana, and the huge wave of mass hysteria from otherwise rational people.
Please don’t misunderstand me: this was a serious story, and it needed to be covered. But did it need the “how do you feeeeeel” treatment? Does it really warrant national grief councelling warnings?
How much is the reportage feeding the beast?
@GM (comment 1)
Well thank goodness you didn’t watch any of the Murdoch related coverage or listen to the shock jocks. ABC and SBS was mild in comparison.
Media certainly feeds the beast with the pro corporate and ideological agenda’s of the fanatics running those operations.
It is going to be a very interesting 5 years in terms of how the power hungry try to grab land online to benefit their agenda’s. Very interesting indeed.