Rebooting crisis coverage in the social media age

When the heavens opened last weekend, some channels of official information closed. Emergency management agencies and the news media both copped criticism for lagging behind events - and behind social media feeds fed by citizens and ordered by algorithms. Can the content from the crowd in real time be harvested for a big picture the news media and the authorities alike can all use?When the heavens opened last weekend, some channels of official information closed. Emergency management agencies and the news media both copped criticism for lagging behind events - and behind social media feeds fed by citizens and ordered by algorithms.Can the content from the crowd in real time be harvested for a big picture the news media and the authorities alike can all use?Among those self-identifying as a drongo this week - but only ironically to send up Auckland mayor Wayne Brown - was Stuff's boss Sinead Boucher. "They didn't clock off at 7.30pm. They didn't wait to be told it was an emergency. They worked all night even when their homes were threatened and their whanau were evacuated," she said in a Twitter shout-out to "media drongos" who covered the floods. Stuff reporter Kelly Dennett had compiled a revealing timeline which showed how communications channels were falling short. On The Front Page podcast, New Zealand Herald deputy editor Hamish Fletcher gave a vivid account from the newsroom about the night the heavens opened but official information sources closed up. Some media - including RNZ and TVNZ - are deemed 'lifeline utilities' under emergency management rules and are obliged to keep broadcasting updates and emergency information no matter what. But not all the media critics were satisfied with the media when the rain hit. "I waited for someone to appear, pointing to a map of greater Auckland and saying 'These areas are experiencing heavy flooding...State Highway 1 is closed here, here and here as are these arterial routes here, here, and here across the city," said former Herald editor Gavin Ellis He said he didn't get much more on Saturday morning TV either. The two main channels' weekend news shows are yet to screen in 2023 because of the way they are publicly-funded by NZ on Air for a set number of episodes per year. Rolling coverage was offered by both TVNZ and Three/Newshub by Saturday afternoon. But even then, as Ellis noted, viewers were seeing almost as much social media material as live journalism or the official information that from some quarters was still in short supply…Go to this episode on rnz.co.nz for more details