TechWag

The newspapers have been generally useless in covering the Iranian elections over the weekend. While the major media outlets have let the story drop on the cutting room floor a robust and notable process of information flow is happening via Twitter, Facebook, and FriendFeed over the weekend. What the media will not cover, the social media sphere is full of news, good, bad, and ugly.

While American newspapers have been quietly ignoring what is becoming a meltdown and crack down in Tehran this weekend as the results of the election become public with the reelection of Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to be the President of Iran. The bridging divide between what is being covered in the USA press and what is being covered via new media in light of the importance of Iran and our relations with a soon to be nuclear power are strategically important to the USA in general. If the newspapers are going to ignore it, social media is going to plaster the results and the eventual outcome all over the internet. Even with the blockages of phone service and internet service (rumor has it that the government of Iran is blocking the internet and cutting phone service around the country), the news is getting out in unprecedented amounts from a country that actively monitors the internet and has a firewall system to rival Chinas.

You can watch the election and the aftermath at YouTube, people have been filling in videos on multiple play lists. You can follow the Iranian elections on twitter; you can follow the election in pictures and text on Facebook as well as follow the elections on FriendFeed. FriendFeed has been on fire over the weekend with well-connected people (family back in Iran) who have been sending information back and forth between sites using FriendFeed as the main collection site. If you check the major channels, CNN, MSNBC, ABC etc, you can catch reruns of Larry King live, or the Ali Drew Tour.

Social networking is the place you want to be right now to get a street side view of what is really happening in a country that is building out a nuclear capability, has a very decent army, and amazing amounts of influence throughout the Middle East. A stable Iran is strategically important to the United States, one that has spent the weekend burning as people call the election a fraud. The lack of coverage from traditional media has been slow, or non existent which is for all its ability and reach, not a way to do business. It has been picking up, but not as well or as quickly as the social media sphere.

If you want to follow breaking news, then it is more apparent that the internet is geared towards instant news, relevant news, and better reporting than the major news systems. This does not mean that there is not a future for journalism students, it means that the tools of the trade are going to change from whatever is used now to a flip camera or a cell phone camera, twitter to get the breaking news out, followed by a blog entry on the fly or a quick 400 to 500 word report as the situation changes. That is about the only way that fluid events are going to be adequately covered, rumors verified, and reporting happen in the real time web. Nothing shows this better than the Iranian elections and the influence that social networking has had on them and how social networking systems have been used to rally, inform, and in some cases, plan riots or reported denial of service attacks against the sitting government.