Why Twitter Wins: Tiger Woods’ Accident

Tiger Woods was involved in a car accident today. Early reports stated that he was in a ‘serious condition’ but that has proven to be a little over-exaggerated. Latest reports say that he is ‘fine’ now but that is not the focus of this post. More information can be found here.

Twitter @BreakingNews

The news was first reported by BreakingNews. The message tweeted read “BULLETIN — REPORT: FAMED GOLFER TIGER WOODS SERIOUSLY INJURED AFTER CRASH NEAR FLORIDA HOME.” Despite the lack of details, it turns out to be credible information.

CNN

It took CNN 45 minutes to report this incident on their website with “(CNN) – Golfer Tiger Woods was injured in a car accident near his home, Florida officials say.”

That’s about it. It took them 45 minutes to come out with that phrase.

Conclusion

Twitter, along with other social media tools such as Facebook has become essential tools in the distribution of news. The Tiger Woods’ accident further exemplifies that the Internet is squeezing the life out of a traditional medium such as newspaper industries by bringing dishing up-to-date reports of the incident. This brings us to our first question, why pay money to read the news when it is already out of date by the time it gets published, when the Internet can offer timely news and it is free?

However, the only problem was the details of the accident were incorrect. Rather than being in a serious condition, Tiger Woods only suffered cuts and bruises which he was then released from the hospital.

By all means use social networking sites as a source for news due to the speed they are reported but it may not necessarily be accurate. Hence, the reason why traditional media industries like to get their facts 100% correct before publishing. At the end of the day, it comes down to whether you value speed or accuracy in your news.