Boston Marathon runners in 2009 (Stewart Dawson/Wikimedia Commons)

The explosions at the Boston Marathon Monday revealed once again how new forms of social media allow for immediate, shot-from-the-hip reporting during emergencies and breaking news. While reporters tried to sort out whether reported explosions at Boston’s JFK library had any connection to the marathon explosions, a flood of tweets and Vine clips were posted with video and on-scene impressions as three people were reportedly killed and almost a hundred wounded.

Poynter did a Storify to sample the palette of approaches journalists took, including observations from on-scene reporters (“I saw people’s legs blown off…”) and direction to other sources where credible people were posting definite information. The flood of reporting also served to remind journalists that information should be confirmed before it’s retweeted or shouted out to the masses.

The Storify also included requests from sources who wanted to be left alone: “Jesus Christ reporters, leave us alone right now…” Some people also bemoaned CNN’s decision to call the situation a terrorist attack.

Herman Cain, former Republican presidential nominee (Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons)

Twitter’s rapid-fire capabilities and its character limitations often make for regrettable outbursts and narrow-minded generalities, especially when it comes to race in media and politics. Eric Deggans at Poynter suggests that the medium limits — maybe even distorts — the discussion of such topics, especially when tempers heat up.

In one Tweet, Tim Graham of Newsbusters.org and Media Research Center wrote, “MSNBC touting Karen Finney as another African-American host. Would the average viewer be able to guess that? Or is Boehner a shade more tan?” For Deggans, the comment smacked of an old school notion of diversity in the newsroom and “whether a media outlet will ‘get credit’ for a person of color who doesn’t resemble what some expect black and brown people to look like.”

In another Tweet, the deeply conservative musician Charlie Daniels wrote, “Funny how if you say something against Herman Cain you’re a genius If you say something against Barack Obama you’re a racist.” Deggans’ take was that the comment implies all black politicians are the same, regardless of political record.

The foot-in-mouth virus of Twitter is probably not surprising to many of its users, though. One commenter even responded:

“I understand your frustration at the reactions to your tweets, but that does not explain how Twitter was limited in this circumstance. The only thing I read is that you received a deluge of responses from Mr. Grahams followers. I have often seen this happen in comment sections to stories, so I don’t think it is something unique to twitter.”

(Everyone calls me Lol / Wikimedia Commons)

Poynter covered a South by Southwest panel of media gurus who discussed how social media has affected the way we write and speak. The panelists included Fast Company’s Neal Ungerleider; McKinney’s Gail Marie; Digitaria’s Kristina Eastham; and Sean Carton, director for digital communication commerce and culture at the University of Baltimore.

They said that journalistic use of social media actually encourages writers to proofread because they are being read immediately by a large audience who will point out errors. The social media sphere also offers journalists the chance to become the cream of the crop with their writing: with so many people delegating themselves to a wonky shorthand, a well-constructed sentence will catch the smart reader’s eye.

In addition to advancing our lexicon with terms like “friended” and “liked,” social media reminds us that changes in language don’t necessarily reflect degeneration, but more likely a shift we must embrace and try to preempt. It should make us excited that diction and syntax is so malleable.

And online media has taught us to value short storytelling, which can often be more interesting because it forces the writer to fill the post with meaning. “Shorter is better–if you can do it well,” Gail Marie said at the panel. “It takes some level of skill.”

Twitter logo (Jessekoeckhoven/Wikimedia Commons)

Researchers from the Georgia Institute of Technology did a study tracking the best ways to increase one’s Twitter following, according to Poynter. The researchers studied over 500 active Twitter accounts. They found that tweeting negative statements proves to be an easy way to shoot yourself in the foot. You’ll also alienate more people if you tweet a lot about yourself and less about “information.” “Informational content attracts followers with an effect that is roughly thirty times higher than the effect of [personal] ‘meformer’ content, which deters growth,” they wrote. “We think this is due to the prevalence of weak ties on Twitter.”

Poynter lists 14 points the study concluded, ruling on what’s good and bad. For example: A detailed profile description or “bio” (good); cramming too many useless hashtags into your tweets (bad).

This isn’t your mom and dad’s Internet anymore. (Credit: LSE Library/Flickr)

Pew released its research on the demographics of social media users for 2012. Jim Romenesko put them together in a pithy breakdown. Two-thirds of adults who use the Internet use Facebook, which was way ahead of all other sites. Sixteen percent are on Twitter, doubled from November 2010. Young people are more likely to use Facebook and Twitter, and women are more likely to use Facebook than men. Pinterest attracts more white people. Instagram has more African-American and Hispanic users than whites. Though Tumblr brings up the rear with only 6 percent of Internet users, it’s much more popular among young people, with 13 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds online signed up.

Credit: Los Angeles Police Department

In the midst of what seems to be the end of the Christopher Dorner manhunt Tuesday evening, San Bernardino County authorities asked reporters to stop tweeting about the showdown between police and Dorner at a cabin outside of Big Bear. The sheriff’s office said the tweets were “hindering officer safety,” after an afternoon where one more police officer was killed and another seriously wounded while tracking down Dorner.

CBS stations complied with the sheriff’s request, alerting their followers they wouldn’t tweet any more updates. Meanwhile, the network’s television stations and sister stations continued to broadcast live feeds of the situation from helicopter view. They even alerted followers to turn on their TVs to watch instead of following the feeds.

(Screenshot: USA Today article / Michael Juliani)

The Twitter app Vine offered journalists (professional and citizen alike) a tool for sharing six-second video clips on their feeds. In early demos, Vine CEOs and eager journalists practiced by showing six seconds of the process of making steak tartare and throwing away their coffee cups. But overwhelmingly, users have taken to Vine to post porn on Twitter, according to USA Today.

Tags like #sex and #porn began appearing on the app, and The Verge reported that one porn clip somehow made it as one of Twitter’s Editor’s Picks. (The clip was removed, labeled as a “human error.”)

ALSO SEE: Apple has a porn problem, and it’s about to get worse

As we know, the tools becoming available for citizen journalism are only expanding. While it seems easy to discount Vine for its early rush of X-rated content, perhaps it’s better to say “So what?” After all, journalism will be journalism, and porn will be porn (except if it becomes an Editor’s Pick).

For its part, Twitter released this statement in response:

Users can report videos as inappropriate within the product if they believe the content to be sensitive or inappropriate (e.g. nudity, violence, or medical procedures). Videos that have been reported as inappropriate have a warning message that a viewer must click through before viewing the video.

Uploaded videos that are reported and determined to violate our guidelines will be removed from the site, and the user that posted the video may be terminated.

If you’re about to get shot, do you run or do you take a Vine clip and share it? (Flickr Creative Commons: Nationaal Archief)

Twitter just added a tool called Vine that shares video clips with your followers. Poynter’s Jeff Sonderman thinks Vine could be a good reporting tool, suggesting that bystander coverage of spontaneous events will become even more immediate. The tool only lets you share six-second clips, which you can take all at once or stagnate into different scenes.

Vine CEO Dick Costolo, in a demo clip, shared a video of the entire process of making steak tartare, broken up into second-long scenes. The video continues on a loop until you decide to click out of it. Sonderman also thinks Vine might complicate reporting ethics, especially with sharing graphic clips before considering the consequences.  “[A]lso think of how much more traumatic the bystander documentation of the Empire State Building shooting would have been if the photos of dead victims were instead videos, with action and audio,” he wrote.

(Wikimedia Commons)

One of the Huffington Post’s senior editors, Craig Kanalley, has written an article he’s thought about writing a few times before: Are Journalists Joking Too Much On Twitter?  Kanalley is careful to avoid seeming uptight, but he’s troubled by the prevalence of snarky tweets coming from journalists regarding serious news.  He points to some journalists who have been fired for tweets meant to be seen as jokes.  Rather than openly condemning jokey journalists, Kanalley wants a discussion about the interaction of humor with journalism to bloom.

A supposedly real shot of Hurricane Sandy water. (Wikimedia Commons)

Many viral shots of the first 24 hours of Hurricane Sandy turned out to be fake.  Somehow we missed detecting that one right away.  Citizen journalism yields a lot of incredible stuff, but kinks still exist (only human, right?).  According to the Nieman Lab, the human rights organization Witness is creating an app that hopes to make it easier to nab the fake videos, photos, and audio people share from mobile devices.  The InformaCam app “would bring metadata to the forefront, allowing journalists, human rights organizations, and others to better identify the origins of a photo or video.”