News coverage: Mosman girl’s bomb scare
Posted by: Nat on: August 4, 2011
Last night, an 18-year-old girl spent around 10 hours trapped inside her house with what was suspected to be a collar-bomb around her neck. (Read more about it here). It was a big news story because it was such an extreme action taken by a criminal that will no doubt have traumatised this girl.
What was interesting about this story, though, was the way it was covered.
I first heard of the incident after visiting The Age website yesterday afternoon and reading an article about a girl in the Sydney suburb of Mosman trapped in a house with a suspected bomb.
I immediately went to Twitter and sure enough, #mosman was a trending topic. People around Australia began tweeting their support and disbelief at such a situation, which was described as like “something from a movie”.
On the Twitter scene, there were several reporters tweeting details and live updates, some of them from the Sydney street which had been evacuated and cordoned off by the police operation. In particular, I was following updates from people/users such as @abcmarkscott (ABC director), @jkerrison (Sky News), @NickBryantOz (BBC Australia) and @Sandra_Sully (Ten Late News), who were filing regular updates on the incident as it unfolded over the 10 or so hours.
Given it was such a delicate and stressful operation, it’s not surprising that the police weren’t providing a lot of detail to the media. It was believed there was a ransom note involved and as the criminal had escaped, the police had to balance the need to inform the public with the sensitive nature of the situation they were in.
Soon enough, international media caught hold of the story, with outlets such as CNN, BBC, CBS and The Guardian publishing stories on the incident.
UK newspaper The Sun‘s coverage of the incident struck a chord with many people on Twitter. Users relayed their disgust at the headline the paper initially used: “Bomb strapped to rich teen’s neck”, calling it “offensive” and “sickening”. The headline has been changed since then (I don’t know whether in response to the complaints or because of the update when the girl was freed) and it now reads: “10hrs with bomb round her neck”. The fact that the girl was from a wealthy family also drew some negative remarks on Twitter, with some users making jokes about the scenario, and others assuming she was just a “poor little rich girl” who wanted attention or that the incident was the price of wealth.
Clearly, social networks like Twitter magnify the public’s commentary and engagement with the stories – both positive and negative. What might’ve originally been someone’s private thought or opinion now has the potential to be seen by people on the other side of the world. However, it’s the way Twitter is being used to report on developing news stories that I think makes it an ultimately worthwhile tool for media organisations.
