It is hard to recall a more dramatic week than the one just seen in Boston. And for the media, which reported the story and at times became the story, the episode shows how its world has changed forever.
This week will certainly be remembered for the shocking tragedy in Boston, where three people were killed in two deadly bombings at the Boston Marathon. But it may also be remembered for the media’s conduct, and how it struggled to report on a rapidly shifting situation and a multitude of sources, from police officials to street-level observers armed with smart phones and large social-media networks.
The urgency to report a fast-moving story means news outlets sometimes get things wrong. But news coverage of the Boston bombing saw a surprising
number of missteps, notably from CNN, which mistakenly reported on Wednesday that Boston police had a suspect in custody, and the New York Post, which had shocking blunders on its front pages twice in one week.
Social media presented other challenges. Twitter had accurate, informative observations, often from eyewitnesses as events were unfolding. But it also had rumors, speculation and just plain mistaken reports, which were amplified as they were shared. To their credit, many news organizations cautioned their followers that Twitter updates could be inaccurate, and they urged their reporters to verify facts before posting.
We had a taste of this confusion during the reporting of Superstorm Sandy. Twitter and other social media were great for following events, but they often got the facts wrong. The impact was muted because the storm kept reporters of all kinds mostly indoors. Not so on warm spring days in Boston.
Of course, balancing speed and accuracy has always been a challenge for those whose business is covering breaking news. For years that was the province of Associated Press, Dow Jones, Reuters and other news wires, which had years of experience and careful editors watching every bulletin that went out. What’s different today of course is that we’re all in the immediate-news business, thanks to social media and smart phones.
Here’s a good post on the effort to find that balance, from Inside Breaking News, which includes the widely shared comment from Matt Roller that Twitter “does its best work in the five minutes after a disaster, and its worst in the twelve hours after that.”
The media also became 
the story at times today. There were concerns early on Friday afternoon that the suspect might be following law enforcement activity via social media, which prompted the Boston Police Department to suspend its Twitter updates for a time. Law enforcement officials had warned the media earlier not to broadcast neighborhood searches, so as not to put police officers in danger.
The New York Post aside, most print dailies did a good job covering the news. Their problem was the same as it’s been for years now, only it was made more apparent by the speed of developments. Today’s print edition of the Boston Globe was hopelessly out of date once it arrived on doorsteps this morning, and the same was true for daily newspapers across the country.
When the next crisis lands, news organizations might be better at handling all these pressures, but it’s likely things will be just as confusing as they were this week. We crave the immediacy that’s possible today, but we are still adapting to how imprecise such news often is.