Changing Face of News Coverage: Twitter and Balloon Boy

As I sit in my office watching the flood of tweets surrounding the disappearance of "Balloon Boy" I am struck by how the way news is transmitted is changing. Today in Ft. Collins, Colorado a six year old boy was reported to have floated away in a homemade balloon.  While millions of people watched live news feed of the story, I stayed up to date with the story by following the feed on Twitter.

Like it or not, Twitter has become a way for users to experience the news.  During the time the balloon was in the air and authorities were trying to figure out how to get it down balloon boy dominated the twitter stream.  The 7 of the top "trending" topics on twitter were all about balloon boy and every minute each one of these topics added thousands of new tweets:

• Colorado
• #balloonboy
• #SaveBalloonBoy
• Falcon
• CNN
• Denver
• Wife Swap
• Balloon Boy

How good is twitter as an information source?:

• I found out within moments of the balloon landing that it had indeed landed.
• I know the balloon was a father son project and could follow links to the father's web page.
• I got to see a photo of the family posing in front of the now infamous balloon.
  
• I now know that the boy's family was on Wife Swap and could follow any number of links

The amount of background information available on the story and on the family is truly amazing.  However, as the story unfolded there was a great deal of misinformation also reported on twitter.

• For a while some twitterers were reporting that the boy was indeed found alive inside the balloon.  Those hopeful reports later were proven false.
• Many were still tweeting that there was a 6 year old trapped in a balloon long after the balloon had landed and the boy was not found inside.

One thing following a story on twitter allows that traditional media does not is the ability to  interact and comment on events unfold.  While many twitterers reported on what they heard about the story others used twitter to express their reaction to the story. These include prayers for the child as well as skepticism about the entire event:

• Praying #balloonboy is found safe and sound.
• RT @redhk: beginning to think this spotlight-loving family miiiight have something to do with this. #justsayin #balloonboy || Roger that.
•  #balloonboy is so grounded. For life.
• hoping the #balloonboy thing was a hoax, so sad for the little boy if it wasn't.
• Basket fell off of balloon #saveballoonboy
• Does this picture sum it up? Seriously hoping for the best as a parent myself. http://twitpic.com/ln9p6 #saveballoonboy #balloonboy
• I hope he's found soon! Someone please keep me updated! #SaveBalloonBoy
• #saveballoonboy omg :( this is awful
  

I personally have seen posts on this topic in many different languages as people from different parts of the world engage with and comment on this story. Meanwhile, I sit in my office and wait with the rest of the world hoping for news that the boy has been found safely.

Follow-up:

The boy was found safely - but he was a top twitter trend for nearly 24 hours!

Labels: balloonboy, news, twitter