Mumbai serial blasts: How Twitter trumped TV channels

 The tragedy of the Mumbai serial blasts brought out the best in tweeters on Wednesday.

Everyone came together to show support, many of them offering their homes as refuge. Tweeters like @nitinsgr meticulously collated data and numbers where help of many kinds could be located; blood groups, places to stay, transport assistance, medical care, food, and more.

It was a space where individuals could find sanctuary from the numbing and by popular consensus, rather pointless and repetitive television news footage, in a space where genuine real time discussions about the events could take place and relevant information could be shared.

Said one disgruntled tweeter, “The problem with 24-hour news channels is that after a point, my desensitized attention glazes over and starts making fun of the news script.”

I do think that news channels might have revised their coverage strategy after the last fiasco two years ago. Playing the footage over and over again is seen by most viewers as both unimaginative and crude. Like a deer caught in the headlights, the news seems to be frozen in a macabre loop. The (in)sincere grimace of the news reporter becomes a detestable land mark of our networks’ lust for blood news and its inability to know what to do with it when it actually happens.

Watching the numerous reactions to the event scroll down was an opportunity to participate in the interior monologues as they unfurled. There was the legitimate rage and sadness, some of it toward the senselessness of lost lives, some of it toward imagined perpetrators, some toward those held responsible for not preventing it.

A strong number of outraged and saddened Pakistani tweeters did their part to express their support for Mumbai.  

“Watching a 8-10-year-old kid on screen. Crying, looking for parents. F#%€£ you bloody terrorists. You coward idiots. Rot in hell," said one     

“Horrified at the news from Mumbai ...heart goes out to the victims, their families and friends," said another.

Some tweeters  spoke about their frustration regarding  how easy it can be to press our buttons and make otherwise tolerant individuals sing like genocidal karaoke machines. I was unimpressed by a few public figures trying to surf over the tragedy and drum up a little nationalist fervor with all the decorum of school boys on a sugar high.

For example: “@suhelseth I hate to sound like this but if Pakistan is involved, then bomb the rogues! If the Americans can go into Abbotabad, why can't we??”

But the point made by more than a few tweeters was that they felt heartened that the so-called fleeting and ephemeral interactions on twitter were experienced as something far richer, deeper and substantial.  Real action and support can be achieved through people when they are connected and feel empowered to make use of this dynamic medium.

A space that is one day like a college canteen can be transformed into a virtual bomb shelter in an instant. It is also a space for unmediated dialogue, where voices that might otherwise be glossed over in public reports, have a chance to make their side heard. I do hope we are given this freedom for a good time to come.

What this also means is that Twitter is becoming a space many Indians find more relevant as a source of news, more accessibly real, and more actionable. We are reaching a point where the professionals in news reporting are expected to do more than report, appear concerned, and repeat footage.

People want to get involved. They do not want to sit in their chairs. To the people of Mumbai… please know… the nation is online… and they want to do all they can for you. If you need help there are people on Twitter who are there to provide it for you now.