Crisis, Journalism and Social Media

It’s no news that we are in crisis. Besides the economical one, we are witnessing a world where new things come up almost every minute. I’m talking here about Social Media, and what I would like to question is whether and how journalism's crisis is related to the  whole new scenario provided by Social Media and all the features attached to them, particularly when a crisis strikes, whenever it is a natural disaster or a topic related to a political issue.

When I studied Journalism at college, more than twenty years ago, I learn that I had to confirm the information with two sources. That was the way I started working at the radio in Spain and that was what any of us did. No one ever thought of broadcasting any little piece of information not corroborated by at least one trusted source. If a citizen called you, or the Radio Station, to give some information, they were a source of information you should check. Nothing more, nothing less.

Picture send by @Kailuland to @112madrid
showing a crack in Peñalara (Madrid)

Only yesterday a citizen called @kaikuland sent a message via Twitter,with some pictures, to Madrid Emergency Service, @112cmadrid, warning about deep cracks (up to eight meters) on the snow in Peñalara, a mountain near Madrid. In a wonderful example of citizen journalism, @kaikuland contributed to create civil protection culture providing graphical useful evidence through Social Media, as @LuisSerranoR explained in this video-post (in spanish) shared by the digital magazine iRescate. Well done.

Influencers and trusted information

On the other side, we also know of many examples where false information had been uploaded through social media. If we only have a look to Hurricane Sandy pictures, there is no need to insist on the topic.

But what happens when it is a traditional media with a reputation and millions of readers who shares non verified information? I'm talking now about spanish newspaper El País when the diary published a fake of Venezuela's Prime Minister, Hugo Chavez, on January 25^th 2013, with 5 columns in its paper edition. The picture had been  authentified by a news Agency, they say. It remained in the digital edition for half an hour while the paper edition was withdrawn.

Paper edition of EL PAÍS showing fake
picture of Hugo Chávez in hospital

As a consequences of this misfortune, El País has lost not only an important part of its reputation but also many readers. What for? To be the first? We all know that in this new scenario, speed is more related to being relevant and to avoid rumors when a crisis strikes than to being first when there is no need. Old days when journalist and the media were the first source has gone, forever.

We, the journalist, should remember that we are who know the rules and we shouldn't forget how they apply, since we are supposed to make journalism (according to law), despite the new social media or whatever new chances the future may bring. It is our responsibility to be truthful because it is not only our reputation what we should worry about, but in a disaster, it is matter of protecting citizens, their properties and the environment.

Thanks  to digital volunteers, integrated in VOST, traditional media as well as ordinary citizens who post  with responsibility, social media are self-correcting, and things always end up in the right place.

If the influencers are those with a reputation, you may lose yours, besides your influence, at once, whoever you are, a media, a journalist or a citizen, in one single click.

The question is: Is the Hugo Chavez incident, and many others we see almost daily, related with the fact that the traditional media are not anymore neither the only source of information nor the first? I think it is. Don't you?

Please feel free to share your thoughts.

Special Firefighters Rescue Team uses WhatsApp to locate lost people

WhatsApp is being used by the Firefighter’s Special Rescue Mountain Team (GERA) in Madrid to rescue people who are lost in the mountains. The team, belonging to Madrid 112 Firefighters, has been able to locate 6 people during the last two months, asking them to use  WhatsApp app to send their location. Many people is not aware of this app’s capability.

It all started casually a couple of months ago when the firefighters team was searching a person lost in the mountains and they couldn’t find him, explained to me Luis Rincon, GERA’s director. A team member asked him whether he was familiar with WhatsApp. The answer was yes, but the man didin’t  know how to send his location.

“All the emergency team had to do, says Rincón, was to guide him through the app so he was able to tell them where he was. That allowed us to save a lot of time, since the position sent is based on the GPS’s Smartphone and is quite accurate. “

“Once we know where a person is, we can either rescue them, if necessary, or guide them to find the right path”.

Operation Manual

"What we've done, explains Rincón, is a very simple operational manual to help people. We generated two trees, one for iPhone  and one for Android. There are almost ten million people using WhatsApp in Spain, but  most of them do not know how to send their location".

GERA's Firefighters 

"What we do when someone contacts 112 is giving them instructions, so they are capable of using  WhatsApp’s menus to send us their position. Smartphones have a great potential for rescue teams, but people ignore this functionality".

How to send your location

The first requirement is having the GPS on or activate it. “Many times people don’t have the GPS activated to save battery. What we recommend is that people learn at home how to do so, in case they need it”.

"Sending your position is an option WhatsApp offers, but people usually uses the app to chat and ignore this capability. What we have done is create some sheets to explain users how to send their location, depending on the smartphone they have. It is a quick reference guide to tell a person what they need to do to send a message with their position“.

“At the same time, we always try people to waste as little battery as possible".

"Not all menus are the same. What people who is planning to go out in the mountains should do is find out home how to use this capability in case they need it”.

"The person who has been able to take these steps is much easier to locate. Sometimes people do not even know what side of the mountain (Madrid or Segovia) they are. Before using WhasApp, they were asked to look at the smartphone screen and tell us their location, but there were many mistakes. We did not know if the position was accurate of it contained a mistake, that could be from 300 meters to 5 kilometers, depending on the Mobile Network ".

WhatsApp offers the correct position instantaneously

"With WhatsApp this is out of the blue. It gives the correct position with an error of 10 or 15 meters, approximately. "

"We are not the first emergency service to use WhatsApp to locate people”, said Rincon. León's Civil Guard  used WhatsApp last October the to find a woman who was lost with her car.

Emergency Centre Madrid 112, 2 years in Social Media

The Emergency Center Madrid 112 meets his first two years in the main social networks: Twitter, Facebook, YouTube, Flickr and Thinglink. Madrid 112 followers tripled to reach 21,000 today in their different profiles.  Twitter account @cmadrid grew from the 5,200 fans a year ago to 18,100 now, while Facebook fans increased from 1,500 to 3,115.

The regional government launched this service in order to inform citizens immediately in case of emergencies such as a road cut by a traffic accident, the interruption of rail traffic or, as happened last summer in Valdemaqueda, a wildfire. In the case of information related to the state of the roads Madrid 112 links the information with the Traffic General Service, so that citizens can deepen the information.

Today, more than 18,100 people follow through Twitter, the account @ 112cmadrid compared to 5,200 they did a year ago. This is an increase of nearly 13,000 fans. Madrid 112  provides last minute information on emergencies and engage with citizens whose questions are addresses through thisTwitter account. They also offer pictures, videos and civil protection recommendations, and broadcast their activity via Ustream.

Madrid 112 Facebook page is followed by more than 3,115 people, up from 1,500 a year ago. Many of those followers belong to emergency or civil protection services. They are mainly young and male audience. Madrid 112 also opened in February a profile on Tuenti oriented to youth and teenagers.

More than 306,000 videos uploaded to YouTube

Videos showing how regional emergency services work, including Firefighters and the Medical Emergency Services (SUMMA 112) has been visualized more than 306,000 times. By sharing this content, Madrid 112 pretends to create a civil protection culture.

Madrid 112 is also present in Flickr and Thinglink, a new social network that lets you post multiple photos with internal links to other photos, videos, texts or websites, an application that enhances the user experience graphically when sharing information across networks as Twitter or Facebook.

2 days with Glen Gilmore

Antrax crisis management, a 2.0 approach is the title of the conference @GlenGilmore lectured yesterday in the Spanish city of Alcorcon, very close to Madrid. The emergency digital magazine, @iRescate, directed by me, and the city Hall Town of Alcorcon @AytoAlcorcon organized the event, which the cooperation of the Spanish Society of Emergency Medicine, SEMES Madrid.

Since anyone interested in the conference may follow all the information in @iRescate, where also an exclusive interview will be available soon, and Twitter (#Antrax) what I’d like to talk in this post is how I met Gilmore and my personal impression on the conference and him.

Social Media

Glen Gilmore contacted me through Twitter on the summer of 2011. I started using the app only that same year, and I must confess that I didin’t know, at that time, how important he was. I didin’t know he has more than 130.000 followers only in his personal account, besides those he has in his others’.

The thing is I probably RT something he wrote (neither of us remember how it was) and we started talking in Twitter. He immediately asked me to join him in LinkeIn, which is what he usually does to check whether somebody is reliable in social media, as he explained to me when we met in Madrid.

What I recalled clearly is that I thought, for the message he sent me in Spanish to join him in LinkedIn, that he was a gentleman. I also thought, for his profile picture, that he was much older than he really is. The funny thing is that he immediately “threaten” me to visit Spain next September. I inmediately answered: “You will be very welcome”.

More than a year happened, during which we kept talking on Twitter, when he sent me an e-mail saying he was coming within a week to Madrid and if it would be possible to lecture on the Antrax crisis. He also added that he needed a translator :-) At that moment, I offered myself to perform the task.

I answered immediately saying it was all a bit too sudden, but, nonetheless, I would make some calls to find a suitable place for the event. I called my friend, @CarlosNovillo, Alcorcon’s Fire Fighter’s Chief, who said that Alcorcon’s Mayor @DavidPerez, would be very interested. I also talked to the vice president of the Spanish Society of Emergency Medicine, SEMES, @fernandolopezmesa, who offered the possibility to certify the conference as a course. All settled, I talked to Madrid 112 Press Manager, @Luisserranor, to organize a visit to Madrid 112.

Devirtualization

We finally met on Wednesday the 25^th on Madrid. We spent three hours together talking on his experience with the Antrax and discussing the presentation he would make the following day. We also talked about the Spanish situation and met a demonstration on the city centre. By that time, I obviously knew how much influence he has on social media, and I wanted everything to be all right.

And it was.

Trustworthiness and social media

Emergency Managers always say  trustworthiness is key in an emergency situation. You can not pretend to open an account on Twitter and be trusted by the citizens next day only because you are and authority. Credibility is something that must be constructed day after day, so you are a reliable source of information.

Glen and I trust each other for the moment we met in social media, and that was the base for the event to be a success.

Emergency Services

We spent Wednesday 26^th all day together, from the moment Madrid 112 Press Manager and me picked him up at his hotel. We visited Madrid 112 Joint Centre in the morning, then had lunch in Alcorcon with the Fire Fighters Chief, the Security Responsible of Alcorcon city town and some other authorities. At 6 o’clock p.m. we met Alcorcon’s Mayor and the conference started.

Visiting Madrid 112 Joint Centre

Gilmore was impressed by the Spanish Emergency Services, and so he said to Madrid 112 Director and to Alcorcon’s Mayor. I remember him saying that he felt “more secure” after visiting the Joint Centre and knowing how they work.

He tried all day to make himself understandable in Spanish, and we really had a great time.

If anyone understands perfectly why the Hufftington Post named him a “Twitter Power House”, what I would like to remark about him is not only his professionalism, well known everywhere, but his kindness and closeness.

As he said, social media connections are real connections, and they make it possible that we finally were able to meet in Madrid and he could lecture here on the Antrax crisis and the power of social media in emergency management.

Thanks to all my friends and authorities who make this event possible and to Glen for making all the way to Spain to share his experience with us!

Forest Fire in la Gomera. Why don’t create a Vost Spain to monitor social media in disasters?

I really can’t understand why authorities are unable to decide who should be the official source when a disaster-a forest fire in our case-strikes. The lack of decision makes it difficult to counter criticism as well as to trust the different sources of information, in a sense that neither the public, nor the media know for certain whether the information delivered is accurate and trustful.  

Since the fire is, according to law, in emergency level 2, it is being managed by the regional authorities in the Canary Island. Nonetheless, it is the press manager of the cabildo insular who is monitoring information in social media through her official account (@KarenBencomoP) without any coordination with the  official 112 twitter account (@112Canarias) who is also informing.

As @jldecastellvi says in his post , @KarenBencomoP  seems to be a new account created because of the fire. Having more than one spokesperson shouldn't be a problem, so long as the information delivered is coordinated and there is a single message. Otherwise, we may have a lot of noise, which can lead to rumour spreading.

I’ve been told that a group of emergency professional, among which are @jldecastellvi, @LuisSerranoR, Javier Blanco (@tango_alfa2), @GalvezRivas and Mónica Ojeda (@artebirgo) are thinking of creating a VOST Spain to monitor information in cases like this.

It sounds to me it a really sensible and great idea. What do you think?

Why rumours spread on #ardevalencia fires: from lack of monitoring to rumour spreading

Lack of coordination between those who were in charge of social media during Valencia fires seems to me the main reason why rumours spread so quickly during the incident. But it wasn't the only one. When there isn't an official and trustworthy source of infomation, neither a single message nor a credible spokeperson, what we must face is counter criticism. But how can we fight rumour when no one is listening to social media and local authorities are not monitoring them? How it is possible to trust oficial sources when the infomation delivered is neither coordinated nor accurate?

 The messages delivered by what we could considered the offical sources mixed everything, from the chainsaws that no authority asked for in Carlet  to the 902 phone number that @CruzRojaEsp added to one message and people included since then in every tweet they send, as well as the combination of these two factors, causing confussion everywhere. Why did all this mess-up kept going for at least three days? Probably because no one was monitoring social media nor listening to what was being said.

What the official account of the local government in Valencia @gva_112cv was doing was pulling data, which doesn't sound that bad, if data were useful. But it wasn't, since they were pulling technichal data, with have no interests to citizens. As in a 1.0 world, they were not monitoring social media but releasing not useful information through Facebook and Twitter, as in the old days. The same way we used to send press releases using the mass media some years ago, as if the landscape had not changed.

Communications in Social Media emergency era

No one was answering to what citizens were saying, as @luisserranor explained so well in this video. 

 Lack of credibility

Trustworthy can not be achieved on a single day. @gva_112cv didin't have the chance, till now, to face a disaster of this magnitute. I don't know how many people are in charge of that account, but it also seems a fact that they don't count on a VOST  to help them. What doensn't work in the ordinary does not work in the extraordinary, and that lack of expertise is probably the reason why no one thought, for instance, of using something like a Usahidi map to locate those places of interest.

We all know what happens when you don't trust the source of information. You seek what you need to know somewhere else, and that is what happens here. It is neccessary to engage with your community by releasing useful information and listening to what they are saying about you, as well as answering their question. Following this path, it would be possible that, when a disaster strikes, you can monitor information through social media and, by delivering a single message, you can become a trusted source of information, capable of coping with the situation and have some chance of being listen to.

The impact of social media in emergencies. Restoring security and safety in case of crisis.

A year has already past since both earthquakes struck the Spanish city of Lorca and Kobe in Japan. In Lorca, the earthquake came as a total surprise, since Spain is not used to them. Therefore, there was not an alert sent to the population, nor a social media emergency plan established, nor did citizens know what to do to protect themselves. (Basically stay indoors, don’t use elevators, cover under a table or similar away from glass, windows and so on, and don’t move until the shaking stops). If outdoors, move away from buildings, street lights and utility wires). Nine people died when some buildings collapsed. Recovery was organized, through social media, while Emergency Services did their best and were able to restore security in a reasonable time. Fundraising was organised in Twitter (@smxlorca)

Japan Tusnami and Earthquake

The Japanese case is completely different. No only for the magnitude of the catastrophe, that can not be compared ( 15,845 casualties, 3,380 missed and  5,893 injured)  but also for the Tsunami that followed the earthquake. So long as we know, tsunamis can not be predicted. Despite the fact that Japanese citizens know very well what to do in case of earthquake, the impossibility to set a Tsunami’s early warning is the key point when talking about mitigation and recovery. 

Japan's Tsunami

In Japan social media were used from the very beginning, reaching more than 5,500 tweets per second.  Let’s remember that while the earthquake knocked out electricity supplies and shut down two nuclear power plants, Internet availability remained relatively unaffected, so agencies and citizens, as well as the Government, were able to use social networks to find useful information about what to do in the aftermath of the disaster as well as to connect and search for their loved ones.  Usahidi was also very useful.  

                                                           

                                                       

Japan is but one example of how social media has become an essential part of recovering in the aftermath of a disaster. The issue now is how we use social media in the recovery phase of a catastrophe. If we take into consideration that at least a third of the general and online population would expect help to arrive in less than one hour, according to @RedCross survey, it seems to me that PIOs, Governments, Emergency Managers and Agencies should try even harder to come up with their expectations.

Digital volunteers versus virtual operation support team.

Digital volunteers and virtual operation support teams /groups are proving to be a good solution, but as some #smem people say, we should extend this model, since we have the technology and are capable of developing early warning systems. In fact, there are some projects in the European Union, like the Alert4All project, where I give advice as a media expert, which has among their main goals to improve early warning systems in case of emergency. So, as I already said, what is left is our will to use the available technology to enhance recovery in the aftermath of a disaster.

What do you think? Comments are welcome.