[Scan-DC] Critiquing scanner listeners, social media and mainstream media coverage of Boston bombing

[Alan Henney]

CNN Wire

April 23, 2013 Tuesday 2:32 PM EST 

Police scanner sites see surge in traffic after Boston

BYLINE: By Heather Kelly, CNN

LENGTH: 1009 words

DATELINE: (CNN) 

(CNN) -- For listeners of police scanners, last week's tragic events offered one real-time drama after another.

During the fertilizer plant explosion in Texas that claimed 14 lives and the Boston Marathon bombings and subsequent manhunt, dispatchers' static-filled audio feeds offered periodic clues about what was happening on the ground. Listeners hungry for the most up-to-date police reports didn't need a scanner to keep up with the news -- many scanner feeds are available online, while some Twitter users type out what they hear on scanners in real time.

Technology has given people more access to what's being said on scanner feeds, often to the dismay of law enforcement agencies worried about the spread of misinformation and criminals eavesdropping on authorities' tactical plans. 

Early Friday, as the night's manhunt for the bombing suspects stretched into daylight, Broadcastify, the primary online source for scanner feeds, did something it had never done before: It voluntarily took all the Boston law enforcement feeds offline. 

Broadcastify licenses its streams to mobile apps such as 5-0 radio for iPhone or Scanner Radio on Android and is powered by an army of hobbyist volunteers -- local reporters, neighborhood watch members, off-duty public safety officers -- who just want to share what they're hearing. They plug their scanner or radio into a computer and use special software to broadcast it online.

Broadcastify streams around 3,500 scanner channels, including local law enforcement, fire departments, weather service, emergency medical services and the International Space Station. During peak traffic times last week, some 180,000 listeners were tuned in to Broadcastify feeds at once -- by far the most traffic the service had ever seen, said founder Lindsay Blanton.

But when the Boston police posted a plea on Twitter asking that people not compromise the safety of officers by broadcasting what homes were being searched, Broadcastify obliged.

Online, the curious quickly found alternative ways to tune in. Some people with their own scanners started live video streams of chatter from the radios in their homes. Others with access to scanners began tweeting out snippets of what they heard. 

Concerns about the safety of broadcasting police feeds have been amplified as technology has moved from clunky, home-bound radios to handheld radios, the Web and now mobile apps available on any smartphone. While law-abiding citizens can now listen in anywhere, criminals can, too.

"They (criminals) always carry radios or carry cellphones that have police scanners on them," said Sgt. Richard Lewis of the Santa Monica, California, police. 

Broadcastify's Blanton stands by his decision to take down the Boston channels, but he maintains that scanner feeds do more public good than harm. "You're going to be hard-pressed to evade law enforcement (by) reading stuff on Twitter," said Blanton, who added he has never heard of a criminal successfully using the service to escape police. 

Safety first

Even so, a number of safety precautions are already in place. More sensitive public safety information is often communicated over discreet channels, not the well-known dispatch channels. There is no law requiring public agencies to keep feeds publicly available, so many cities have opted to encrypt some or all of their transmissions. 

"The decision to go encrypted was for the safety of officers and security of the community, because when you can hear us on a scanner so can bad guys," said Lewis, the Santa Monica police sergeant. 

His department made the move from open radio channels to an encrypted system in 2008. Since then, most complaints about being cut off have come from local reporters who use scanners to get tipped off to crimes. 

Upgrading to an encrypted system isn't a quick fix. The new equipment is expensive, and encryption comes with its own issues. It makes it difficult to communicate with other departments and agencies during an emergency. For example, the manhunt in Boston was a multiagency effort, involving federal and local command centers and various groups all trying to communicate with each other, which couldn't have been done using just encrypted communication channels.

For its part, Broadcastify time-delays all feeds for 30 to 90 seconds. Its terms of service prohibit providers from streaming sensitive feeds such as tactical, SWAT, narcotics and fire investigation channels as well as most federal government channels. 

A bad game of telephone

The bigger concern for some is the spread of misinformation, which can contribute to confusion, panic and, in the case of the Boston bombings, mistaken identity. People communicating over the radio are often just as confused about fluid situations as their listeners are. Officials say anyone tuning into a live scanner feed, or reading a transcription of a feed on social media, should not assume that everything they're hearing is accurate. 

Lewis said the earliest information to come across scanners can often be wrong, and that the first eyewitness reports can vary wildly from what investigators eventually discover to be true. "You have to be very careful of what we hear," he said.

For example, a tweet surfaced Thursday night that incorrectly named a missing Brown University student as one of the suspects, citing police scanners as the source. The missing student's family temporarily took down a Facebook page asking for help finding him after being bombarded by negative comments. 

In this way, an incorrect tweet can take on a life of its own as it is quickly retweeted and quoted. Any subsequent correction is seen only by people following that original person. 

Even with these challenges, Blanton has found that many agencies are happy to have people following the nonsensitive channels. A number of departments even share their official feeds with Broadcastify. 

"On the law enforcement side, they welcome public involvement; more eyes and ears on the ground," Blanton said. "A lot of agencies see the benefit of making available what they do."






The Guardian (London) - Final Edition

April 23, 2013 Tuesday

National: Special report: Boston bombings: A 'witchhunt' on social media sites - and a bad week for the old guard: Reaction to the events in Boston showcased the growing role of online tools

BYLINE: Richard Adams

SECTION: GUARDIAN INTERNATIONAL PAGES; Pg. 14

LENGTH: 1421 words

As the Boston marathon wound down on the Monday afternoon, a Twitter user with the handle @DeLoBarstool posted a brief tweet: "Uhh explosions in Boston" - the first online record that can be found of the two bombs that went off near the race's finish line, killing three people, injuring 170 more and sparking a dramatic city-wide manhunt watched around the world.

DeLo - whose Twitter profile carries an image of what appears to be a Smurf duelling with Darth Vader - might not have been the most credible source, but it appears he was the first in the city to report it. And unlike many of those who were to follow, he at least got the facts right - in contrast to breathless reporting from some of the most heralded parts of the US media, including CNN and the Associated Press.

As tension drains from last week's events, the postmortems are less about the tired comparisons of "old versus new" media and more an examination of the online tools now available to the media, police and members of the public, and how they interact and influence each other in real time. 

One crucial question is whether the whip-like response of social media and its unlimited appetite for content after an event such as Boston causes the old media to struggle to stay relevant by publishing half-baked snippets and worsening the industry's natural reflex to want to be first with the news.

The other is whether the virtual manhunt conducted online, by users of social media sites such as Twitter, Reddit or 4Chan, helped or hindered the actual manhunt taking place in the streets around Boston - and exposed innocent individuals to danger.

While some users of Reddit - the social media community owned by Conde Nast's holding firm, Advance - used the site to offer support, exchange information and speculate in the days after the explosions, others conducted what Wired magazine described as a "witchhunt" - for which one of the site's founders apologised last night.

"Though it started with noble intentions, some of the activity on Reddit fuelled online witchhunts and dangerous speculation which spiralled into very negative consequences for innocent parties," Reddit's general manager, Erik Martin, known online as hueypriest, wrote in an unusual mea culpa on the site.

"The Reddit staff and the millions of people on Reddit around the world deeply regret that this happened."

Even the White House was paying attention to the cacophony last week, with President Barack Obama telling America on Friday, following the capture of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev: "In this age of instant reporting, tweets and blogs, there's a temptation to latch on to any bit of information, sometimes to jump to conclusions. But when a tragedy like this happens, with public safety at risk and the stakes so high, it's important we do this right."

What followed that first tweet was a week-long firehose of reportage, reaction and emotion, as millions rushed online in what has become a familiar pattern in the wake of a breaking news event, such as the destruction caused by tropical storm Sandy or the massacre at a primary school in Newtown, Connecticut.

But the Boston marathon and the city-wide manhunt that followed were in a league of their own. While other events had rolling news reports and reaction to sustain them, in Boston the aftermath and search for the perpetrators practically invited the city's residents and those motivated to follow events online to take part themselves.

One glaring opportunity was the Boston police department scanners - or radio - streamed online, meaning anyone in the world with an internet connection could follow, raw and verbatim, what officers were saying amongst themselves. The Boston PD's own Twitter account issued a blunt message to scanner-addicts: "WARNING: Do Not Compromise Officer Safety by Broadcasting Tactical Positions of Homes Being Searched," which was itself retweeted 20,000 times.

That warning came too late for the unfortunate family of a missing Brown University student, who was named via Twitter and Reddit as a suspect based on garbled police scanner transcripts.

The missing student - who is still missing - was joined by "Mike Mulugeta", an unconnected name that came up on the police scanner and was confidently tagged as a suspect. At least "Mike Mulugeta" doesn't appear to exist.

As the initial shock and outrage subsided, Reddit users known as "redditors" organised a branch of the site to crowd-source sifting through the pile of images, some from official sources such as the FBI, but others from those who attended the race and posted still and video footage, in a hunt for clues to the killers.

The main online venue, a "sub-reddit" named /r/findbostonbombers, has now been taken down. But at the height of activity it produced a sprawling Wiki-like spreadsheet on Google that carried hundreds of comments about supposed suspects, with the nicknames and even names of supposed suspects leaking out into the wider social media.

Did it make any difference? Despite their optimism, Reddit users didn't nail down the actual suspects even if they had the brothers in their sights, and the ambivalence over their efforts was summed up in a Washington Post headline: "Online detectives flourish, damage, help during Boston manhunt".

What it did provoke, according to the Washington Post's FBI sources, is the early release on Thursday of the photographs of the Tsarnaev brothers, in part to limit the damage being done to those wrongly being targeted as suspects in the media. There was also the danger of the Tsarnaevs gaining public sympathy through a premature identification, given the false identifications that had already been given out by the media.

In particular, the FBI said it was concerned that other sources identifying the Tsarnaevs could turn the manhunt into a free-for-all, "with news media cars and helicopters, as well as online vigilante detectives, competing with police in the chase to find the suspects".

In the end, it was new technology that tracked down the marathon bombers - but not the technology of online crowd-sourcing. Instead it was the FBI's examination of 2,000 digital images and closed-circuit video footage using sophisticated software - combined with an old-fashioned identification provided by injured spectator Jeff Bauman, who appears to have seen Tamerlan Tsarnaev place the bomb that blew Bauman's legs off.

A phone call from the brothers' aunt to the FBI tip line appears to have been the final confirmation.

But if it wasn't social media's finest hour, it was hardly its worst. While the usual mix of rumour, misinformation and repetition filled Twitter, there were also heroic efforts at rigour and accuracy, led by a journalist named Seth Mnookin, a teacher at Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

Meanwhile, the speedy reactions of social media did at least see its worst errors corrected almost as rapidly. While erroneous identifications of the bombers did circulate freely, they were just as quickly snuffed out, although that might be little solace for those falsely accused.

The more traditional, mainstream branches of the media had a worse week. The New York Post would win the wooden spoon for reporting that began with false reports of 12 people being killed in the explosions, to its front-page photograph on Thursday of two innocent students it labelled "bag men", while stripping the photograph of context. And then there was its false claim that investigators had a Saudi Arabian national suspect "under guard at an undisclosed Boston hospital".

CNN and the Associated Press didn't exactly enjoy a reputation-burnishing week in Boston, with experienced CNN correspondent John Harwood going on air on Wednesday with news that a suspect was under arrest, a report confirmed by AP and the Boston Globe.

Even NPR, America's equivalent of BBC radio, stumbled badly with a report claiming a third suspect had been arrested, while virtually every news organisation following the story falsely reported that the brothers had robbed a petrol station. In fact they had merely shown up in the station's security footage following an unrelated robbery - where they were seen by a police officer who noted their resemblance to the suspects, in one of the most unlikely coincidences.

In a chaotic week when truth was at a premium, the petrol station serendipity was truly stranger than fiction.

Did the virtual manhunt taking place on sites such as Twitter help or hinder the police search for suspects?

Captions:

Tamerlan Tsarnaev created his YouTube channel in August 2012








National Public Radio

April 22, 2013 Monday

SHOW: All Things Considered 08:00 PM EST

Social Media Vigilantes Cloud Boston Bombing Investigation

ANCHORS: Steve Henn

GUESTS: Alexis Madrigal

LENGTH: 820 words

AUDIE CORNISH: The events last week in Boston played out live on television, on the Internet and all over social media. In online chat forums, such as Reddit and 4Chan, would-be sleuths pored over photos of the bombing site, attempting to identify suspects. Again and again, these Internet rumors found their way into mainstream media.

On Thursday, the New York Post ran a front-page photo of two individuals with the headline Bag Men. And a missing student from Brown University was even named online as a suspect. Both these reports were inaccurate and all of them took root on the Internet. Joining us now to talk about how so many people got so much wrong is NPR's technology correspondent Steve Henn. And Steve, first, for folks who don't know, what are Reddit and 4Chan? 

STEVE HENN: Well, 4Chan and Reddit are social media sites that let users post content more or less anonymously. And early last week on both of these sites and some others, people began discussion groups dedicated to finding the Boston bombers. I spoke with Alex Madrigal. He covers technology and social media at The Atlantic. And he started watching this at the beginning.

ALEXIS MADRIGAL: 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 - I'm sort of air-quoting here - "suspicious" characters, people carrying backpacks, people who might look like terrorists.

STEVE HENN: At the time, Madrigal compared this to online vigilantism.

AUDIE CORNISH: But what did these online discussions look like?

STEVE HENN: Well, one of the most popular appeared on 4Chan and it was a collection of photographs with, you know, these, quote/unquote, "suspects" circled. In some cases, notes were scrolled next to the photos explaining the reason why the person circled was allegedly suspicious. And some of the reasons in the post were that the person was, quote, "brown." In the end, none of the people who were circled in this post turned out to be at all related to the bombing.

But that individual post attracted more than two and a half million hits by late afternoon Wednesday last week. And it's clear some of these forums affected both the investigation and the media's coverage of it. On Thursday morning, the New York Post ran the front-page headline you mentioned, Bag Men. And it included a large color photographs of two high school athletes who were featured in one of the 4Chan photos.

The Post later said they'd been given that photo by law enforcement.

AUDIE CORNISH: All right, Steve, but how did all this online sleuthing actually affect the investigation?

STEVE HENN: Well, over the weekend, investigators in Boston said one of the reasons they decided to publicly release images of their suspects Thursday evening was to try and tamp down on the Internet rumors and this kind of speculation, which by late last week had become a distraction. Unfortunately, shortly after the FBI's press conference, folks on Reddit began speculating that one of the suspects looked like Sunil Tripathi, a 22-year-old student at Brown University who's been missing since mid-March.

That rumor began to spread online. And in the middle of the night, several people on Twitter tweeted out that Sunil's name had been broadcast on a police scanner and he had been named as a suspect. There's no evidence that happened, but starting about three in the morning, Tripathi's family was besieged by media requests. Reporters were calling both his sister and his parents, increasingly confident that their missing son was somehow involved.

Major websites printed Tripathi's name as a suspect. And again, these accusations were completely wrong, but this was obviously a horrendous experience for a family that was already going through a very, very difficult time.

AUDIE CORNISH: All right, Steve, now that it seems pretty clear that the prime suspect is in custody, do you see any contrition online?

STEVE HENN: Yes. Actually, immediately after the suspects' names were released by police in Boston, individuals who had participated on Twitter and on Reddit in naming Sunil Tripathi reached out to the family and apologized. And just this afternoon, the general manager of Reddit, Eric Martin, apologized publicly to the family, saying that he regretted the pain that they had to endure. And he expressed hope that the entire community would learn from this experience, and he promised to do a better job policing Reddit's own rules in the future.

And even last week, during the events unfolding in Boston, there were those on Reddit and in some of these other forums that were warning some of the participants that what they were doing could seriously injure innocent people and that they needed to be more careful. Obviously, those warnings weren't heeded at the time.

AUDIE CORNISH: NPR's technology correspondent Steve Henn. Steve, thank you.

STEVE HENN: You're welcome.











Business Law Daily

April 23, 2013 Tuesday 3:50 AM EST 

HOMELAND SECURITY FAILED IN BOSTON

LENGTH: 1467 words

Apr 23, 2013 (Business Law Daily:http://bizlawnews.com/ Delivered by Newstex)
http://bizlawnews.com/wp-content/plugins/wp-o-matic/cache/2af896aff8_Dzhokhar-Tsarnaev.jpgThe FBI and Justice Department put-on a clever media dog and pony show last night to trumpet how the combined forces law enforcement successfully captured the Boston Marathon Bombers, but nothing could be farther from the truth. Within 24 hours of the bombing, Tamerlan and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had escaped in plain sight by returning to their normal activities, even though the older brother Tamerlan had been a focus of FBI surveillance in 2011. The real crime-scene-investigative heroes were millions of members of the internet social media website Reddit, who virally leveraged their diverse skills as citizen-social-investigators. 

These self-deputized 'CSI' agents sifted through police scanner chatter, cell phone pictures and community rumors to scrutinize the terrorists' movements in front of the Lord amp; Taylor store to 'out' the names of the Boston Bombers. America needs to have an open debate to determine if the politically correct June 11, 2012 Dreamer Executive Order, terminating the deportation of young undocumented immigrants, contributed to a policy relaxation by the Homeland Security Department that had the effect of offering more respect for terrorist Constitutional rights than for the safety of American citizens.
Tamerlan Tsarnaev was obviously named in honor of 'Tamerlane[1]', the brilliant military strategist who by ruthlessly conquered every nation between India and modern day Turkey to establish his 15th Century Islamic Caliphate. The Tsarnaev family immigrated to the U.S. in 2002 and older brother Tamerlan following two years later. They were granted permanent political asylum in 2007, while collecting welfare and living in public housing in Cambridge, Massachusetts. In 2009 and 2010, Tsarnaev was the New England Golden Gloves heavyweight Champion and would have made the U.S. Olympic Training Team in 2009, if he had not lost a controversial quarter-finals decision after knocking down his opponent for a full 'eight count'.
After a 2011 tip from Russian State Security, Tamerlan Tsarnaev was subject to a 'prevention' interview by the FBI. He was told: 'We know what sites you are on, we know where you are calling, we know everything about you, everything!' Tamerlan's father, mother and aunt were also 'interviewed'. Tamerlan's public-facing YouTube playlist currently features Chechen revolutionary videos by singer Timur Mutsuraev, 'The Emergence of Prophecy: The Black Flags from Khorasan' and other radical jihadi favorites. He was also arrested in 2009 for domestic assault of his girlfriend.
On January 12, 2012, Tamerlan flew to Moscow and appears traveled to the Caucus region of Dagestan or Chechnya. He returned in July 2012. During this period it is assumed that he developed the sophistication manufacture the bombs and grenades he used in Boston by attending a jihadi training camp. On June 12, 2012, shortly before Tamerlan returned, his mother was arrested and charged[2] with two counts of malicious/wanton damage and property defacement, after stealing $1,624 worth of clothes from a Lord amp; Taylor. She conveniently left for Dagestan to avoid prosecution and shortly thereafter Tamerlan's father also left the U.S. for his homeland.
On September 1, 2012, with the Middle East rioting against the U.S. and our citizens being murdered in Benghazi, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was sworn-in as an American Naturalized Citizen. He had just graduated from Cambridge Rindge and Latin High School[3], the alma mater of liberal icons Ben Affleck and Matt Damon. Dzhokhar entered the University of Massachusetts at Dartmouth on a scholarship he won[4] from the City of Cambridge, which describes itself as a community 'whose strength and beauty' is in its diversity. Undoubtedly, Dzhokhar's sob story about being a Chechen victimized by Russian tyranny scored extra scholarship points for helping the politically oppressed.
It should have been easy for FBI investigators to connect Tamerlan Tsarnaev as a person of interest. He was Chechen, on Russian terrorist watch-list, recently traveled to Chechnya, had an arrest for assault, and his mother had been prosecuted by Lord amp; Taylor. But the law enforcement trail went cold after the first 24 hours[5] for the bombers who placed black backpacks in front of the Boston Lord amp; Taylor store on Patriot's Day.
Dzhokhar Tsarnaev was so confident of his escape that he slept in his single-unit dorm room at UMass-Dartmouth the day after killing three and wounded 180 Boston Marathon spectators. He acted completely relaxed the next day as he worked out at the gym, played video games, participated in intermural soccer, and went to a hip-hop party on campus that evening. Meanwhile, law enforcement officials frantically called out to the public for any clues on how the terrorists had vanished.
Perhaps one of the challenges law enforcement faced was the Presidential Executive Order on June 11, 2012 that stopped arrests and deportations of young 'undocumented' immigrants under 30. President Barack Obama said at his press conference announcing the policy change: 'They pledge allegiance to our flag. They are Americans in their hearts, in their minds, in every single way but one: on paper.'
Unions representing America's Immigration amp; Customs Enforcement agents slammed the Administration over the new policy. Border Guard leader Chris Crane cited a case where an immigrant facing criminal charges was let go under the Dreamer policy because officers are 'under threat of losing their jobs[6]' if they defy the policy. Crane again complained this February when the Department of Homeland Security released thousands illegal immigrants from jails across the country due to the Budget Sequester[7].
Unknown to the Tsarnaevs, who were probably basking in the glory of their perfect crime and dreaming up the next slaughter for their Chechen offensive, the Reddit citizen-social-investigators had identified Dzhokhar and Tamerlan by analyzing the bombers hats to pin-point the Tsarnaev brothers as the 'unsubs' as the 'unsubs.' Reddit had also identified their new Camaro get-away-car and was closing in on their current location.
The Tsarnaevs, who were also monitoring Reddit, suddenly realized they had been identified as perpetrators and were forced to break their disciplined covers by robbing a 7-11 store for quick cash, assassinating a campus policeman, and then botching their escape when they car-jacked a Mercedes with a Lo-Jack security system. It still took law enforcement another 48 hours of dodging homemade grenades and engaging in multiple gun fights with automatic weapons to stop the Chechen terrorists.
As America's first successful major domestic terror attack in the eleven years since the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks on New York and Washington DC, the Boston Bombing is evidence that some dramatic change in policy must have allowed a person identified as a potential terrorist to successfully complete his mission and almost escape in plain sight. The ramifications of the politically driven changes to Homeland Security's domestic surveillance and enforcement appear to have substantially contributed to the failure to protect American citizens from the people who live amongst us and still hate us. Congress should conduct open hearing to thoroughly investigate this intelligence failure and to author bipartisan legislation that better protects our nation from terrorists.
CHRISS STREET amp; PAUL PRESTON Present 'The Agenda 21 Radio Talk Show' Streaming Live Monday through Friday at 10 to Noon http://www.kcnr1460.com/[8]
Follow Blogs: www.chrissstreetandcompany.com[9] amp; www.agenda21radio.com[10] Please cite this article as: Chriss W. Street (2013) HOMELAND SECURITY FAILED IN BOSTON. Law amp; Industry Daily. http://bizlawnews.com/homeland-security-failed-in-boston-3/[11]
[1]: http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/596358/Timur [2]: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2311653/Boston-bombings-Mother-Boston-bombing-suspects-arrested-year-stealing-1-600-worth-clothes-Lord--Taylor.html [3]: http://crls.cpsd.us/ [4]: http://www.boston.com/yourtown/news/cambridge/2011/05/cambridge_announces_2011_city.html [5]: http://news.firedoglake.com/2013/04/17/trail-goes-cold-in-boston-marathon-bombing-as-third-victim-identified/ [6]: http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2012/07/26/ice-border-patrol-unions-claim-illegal-immigrants-exploiting-dreamer-policy/ [7]: http://bigstory.ap.org/article/dhs-releasing-illegal-immigrants-sequester [8]: http://www.kcnr1460.com/ [9]: http://www.chrissstreetandcompany.com [10]: http://www.agenda21radio.com [11]: http://bizlawnews.com/homeland-security-failed-in-boston-3/ 








Gear Diary



April 23, 2013 Tuesday 6:31 AM EST 



Twitter Showed the Best and Worst of Brands During Boston Attacks



LENGTH: 332 words




Apr 18, 2013 (Gear Diary:http://www.geardiary.com Delivered by Newstex)
http://geardiary.com/2013/04/18/twitter-showed-the-best-and-worst-of-brands-during-boston-attacks/epicurious-boston-tweet/ Epicurious' Boston Tweet
Some have called Twitter the 'new police scanner', an analogy which makes sense for those of us who had relatives with police scanners and CB radios back in the 70s when they were all the rage. This was very true during the attacks at the finish line of the Boston Marathon: I found myself with four tabs open on my laptop - three were local Boston stations WCVB, WHDH and Boston.com, and the other was Twitter. It did an amazing job of pulling in information because from a wide array of sources shared and retweeted by all of the folks I followed. 


I also saw calls for support, notes about how Google set up specific sites to locate people, numbers from the Boston police and FBI, ways to help, and on and on. As they were on the ground in Boston, there were many people on Twitter doing everything they could to help out. There were plenty of brands and companies rushing to help out however they could; you can see a great round up of them, here[1].
But sprinkled in with all of these informative tweets were the usual stream of promoted tweets, and those from 'mommy bloggers' which were largely about coupons, contests and giveaways on their sites. (As for why I follow them, I met a bunch at the Hyundai events). But I noticed two things that were very troubling to me, to the point that I issued my own scathing tweet[2]:
continue reading[3]
[1]: http://redirectingat.com?id=3044X598167amp;xs=1amp;url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.brandchannel.com%2Fhome%2Fpost%2F2013%2F04%2F16%2FBrands-Boston-Marathon-Bombing-041613.aspxamp;sref=rss [2]: http://redirectingat.com?id=3044X598167amp;xs=1amp;url=https%3A%2F%2Ftwitter.com%2Ftxa1265%2Fstatus%2F323923134065565696amp;sref=rss [3]: http://geardiary.com/2013/04/18/twitter-showed-the-best-and-worst-of-brands-during-boston-attacks/ 







Mediaite

April 22, 2013 Monday 4:40 PM EST 

CNN Takes On...CNN: Reliable Sources Doesn't Ignore Its Network's Own Blunder

LENGTH: 1197 words

Apr 22, 2013 (Mediaite:http://www.mediaite.com/ Delivered by Newstex)
Howard Kurtz[1] is viewed by some in media like an internal affairs officer is viewed inside a police department: A necessary part of the force, but one that also gets the least holiday greeting cards come December. 


Reliable Sources--a weekly program hosted by Kurtz featuring panels and guests that analyze the media--is one watched closely by those in the industry. A majority of segments, simply due to the general nature of analysis, will skew more negative than positive. So at some point, all networks and most on-air talent will be discussed in some fashion on the show. And given the massive and fragile egos in network and cable news, it's a good bet the reaction to what's being said isn't pretty. 
The media never experienced more scrutiny than it has in the past week, as the Boston bombings and subsequent manhunt [2]became the biggest story (if not the most riveting) since 9/11. A terror attack involving bombs at a major sporting event--on Patriots Day--in an iconic American city: Three killed, including an 8-year-old boy, and 170 injured, several maimed. 
The public was saddened, angry, demanding...wanting answers. Why did this happen? Who did this?