Zing of Authenticity

Although last week marked the one-year anniversary of the Boston Marathon bombings, to many the tragic even feels like yesterday. And with a World Wide Web overflowing with data, information of the trauma continues to pour out from its digital home.

"If journalism is the first rough draft of history, eyewitness reports captured on mobile phones and broadcast to the world are the first reports—scratchings, written hastily on Post-its, which later become an outline that eventually inform the first draft as well as the drafts to follow," stated a TIME Magazine journalist.

What a fascinating concept.

"They are hastily scribbled and stuck in the moment, but later, when a skilled storyteller comes along, they begin to take shape into a cohesive narrative. And, particularly the case of the Marathon Bombings, they take on a life of their own as a kind of meta-narrative—we get a sense of how we respond when tragedy strikes," he continued.

However, unlike Word document or paper-and-pen canvases, these "rough drafts" take place on the Internet, never to be erased from its digital database. 365 days and a Google search later, I can still relive that tragedy—as if I was there.

According to National Geographic, Bill Braniff, executive director of the National Consumption for the Study of Terrorism and Response to Terrorism, said social media does exactly this; it places people into a digital community "instantly spreading information far beyond the affected area" at speeds comparable to a wildfire.

But many argue that this digital spread of information isn't only quicker than a wildfire but also more dangerous.

The rapidity of social media provides a "high", or "zing," as Brooke Gladstone, On The Media Host, calls it. In her interview with Alex Goldman, OTM Producer and Chief Twitterer, Gladstone explained the "zing of authenticity" journalists (both citizen and professional) experience when publishing news.

The question remains about whether the "zing" of publishing something first is worth more than the "authenticity" of publishing something credible. In other words, is it more important to be the first to disseminate questionable information or more important to be the first to disseminate credible information?

Gladstone questioned Goldman's motives as he tweeted information about the Boston Marathon bombings while hearing them from the local police scanner. She asked: "Were you tweeting the police scanner compulsively, or did you have intent?"

Perhaps a follow-up question would have been, "Were you tweeting questionably or credibly?"

Goldman continued with his answer: "I feel like my intent was just to give a sorta snapshot of the confusion that was going on on the ground. I mean, a police scanner does not create a narrative; a police scanner is just a couple of people giving bits and pieces of information."

Bingo.

Bits and pieces of information.

That's where this "zing" thing is faulty. There's a "calculated risk", as Goldman said, to tweeting information as it's heard rather than as it's corroborated.

At least one journalist at Time Magazine realizes this. He stated: "Though there is plenty to praise—the excellent work of some eyewitnesses who truly became amateur reporters, the absolute immediacy of information—there's also much to worry about: the emotion-fueled speculation, the misinformation, the vigilante journalism."

LA Times restated the same point: "In a mad rush to be the first to identify the perpetrators, anonymous posters online began openly naming people they believed had planted the bombs. Caught up in the mania, some traditional media ran with that information."

Ah, there it is again. That word "zing". Oh wait—they said mania, not "zing". How could I confuse those two?

Well, according to NPR, even The Atlantic's Alexis Madrigal thinks social media users are a bit maniacal. "People...decided that they could help with the investigation by taking all the photos that had come out of the bombing, combing through them and looking for suspicious characters," Madrigal said.

NPR stated: "Even in the beginning, Madrigal compared what was going on to vigilantism."

However, according to CBS News, Lance Ulanoff, editor-in-chief of Mashable.com, said it was more of an adrenaline for social media users to catch the bombers before the FBI, rather than helping with the investigation.

"They became investigators," Ulanoff said. "Their stated goal was to find the bombers before the F.B.I....so they weren't necessarily saying, 'Let's help find the bomber's; they were like, 'We're going to beat them to it..."

Zing.

Social media has provided an amateur platform for citizen journalists to be the first. Do we really thrive on being the first? Does this "sort of zing of authenticity" boost our ego, make us feel better about ourselves?

Perhaps not when we mistakenly accuse an innocent Brown University student as a suspect.

Then why do we do it? Why do social media users continue to use these sites as a way to say whatever, blame whatever and... just...whatever?

USA Today addressed this: "Another challenge for social media users in the wake of a tragedy: figuring out what is appropriate to share and what is not. For instance, some social media users posted graphic images of bombing victims."

ABC News also emphasized this: "Everything from photos of blood covering the ground to a six-second Vine of the actual explosion was circulated, giving people a truer image of what happened."

While some, like ABC, might argue that these images are true, others disagree. With Photoshop and other editing programs, who's to say what's true and what's not?

Yet, I can't take my eyes off those photos. I can't stop playing and replaying the video. Why? Because it gives me that "zing". I can be one of the firsts to see it. I can be one of the firsts to have this unauthentic "high"—a high that today we crave like any other drug.

ABC News stated: "According to Topsy, a Twitter analytics company, at around 4:10 p.m. (less than 90 minutes after the bombings on April 15), there were more than 300,000 mentions on Twitter of 'Boston explosions'. At around 4:30 p.m., there were more than 700,000 mentions on Twitter of the 'Boston Marathon'; the hashtag #prayforboston trended on Twitter, and Topsy reports that from 4:30 p.m. to 5:30 p.m., more than 75,000 tweets mentioned 'Pray for Boston'."

What a high, right?