Week 3 - Ted Talk - Social Media becomes the News

This was a very relevant video (i.e. oil spill, Greece, other major world events). I first would like to state that I love ted.com. It is very cutting edge and very thought provoking. This ted talk shows how quickly we can report the news as every day citizens. Communication happens so much quicker. I recall local newscasts flashing up a phone number to call to report something. It was a tip hotline for them. Now I think people can upload video, post pictures, and text / tweet so quickly that these hotlines have become "so twenty minutes ago." It makes you wonder if we will just become more connected each year that eventually we all will know exactly what everyone else experiences. We have that now with Twitter and other media, but multiply the current technology and imagine the interconnectivity of the human race. Impressive.

The Ted talk also reminded me of the iReport portion of CNN.com. People can upload videos, stories, etc. on a reputable news site. It makes stories feel more real and gives a more inside perspective without as much commercialism.

"iReport is a user-generated section of CNN.com. The stories in this section are not edited, fact-checked or screened before they are posted. ...

iReport stories that have a red "CNN iReport" stamp in the corner have been vetted and cleared. That means they've been selected and approved by a CNN producer to use on CNN, on air, or on any of CNN's platforms."

-www.ireport.com

CNN is confident with this reporting structure. It makes you think that newspapers will go under even more. News sources might be the new newspapers as you can still tweet stories and report on current events. The paper version is probably on its way out.