Social media gets the story before traditional Press.

The recent case of the young Aysha King who was discharged by his parents without the consent of the hospital treating their terminally ill child proved a significant discussion on the NHS’s ability to address the needs of the child, and the parents striving for the possibility of all treatments being available for their son. There was significant media attention on the family who were perceived to go against the wishes of the Southampton hospital who were treating Aysha, the family were involved in a legal dispute, consequently the family regarded the NHS as giving inadequate care which would prove detrimental to the future health of their child.

The response from the family was not conventional they did not approach a news outlet in order to respond to the alleged allegations, they took to social media instead. The older brother Naveed who is adept user of social media, presented the family viewpoint and created a statement which informed the world of the family’s reasoning and journey since the family left Southampton., and furthermore answered questions on neglect and the issue of European arrest warrant granted against Aysha’s parent.

Naveed catalogued Aysha’s ill health on Youtube, the videos briefed the audience on Aysha’s treatment plans, and how his brother’s illness had affected the family.

The engagement with the news on social media, has allowed users to share news stories, therefore this has allowed the news experience to be enhanced  on a variety of platforms from mobile devices to video and image shares of the said news stories. There is a significant factor of news breaking on social media, but the checks and balances of news story cannot be ascertained within the code of media ethics as the parameters are far reaching.

The death of Mike Brown in Ferguson an unarmed teenage shot by a white Police Officer  the story unfolded initially on social media platforms, rather than a breaking news piece. More than 3.6m Ferguson related tweets were sent between 9th August ,the day Mike Brown was killed, and 17th August.  

The question here is why the slow uptake by the news stations, is there a race concern or have audiences become desensitised on the issues of young black teenagers   being shot that the subject of this story was not topical enough that it developed on Twitter rather than the traditional media outlets, therefore the propeller affect of citizen journalism had fuelled the story to the front pages.

The  main success of social media is the method of referring, where tweets and followers are referred to stories published elsewhere, juxtaposed with continuous updates the breadth and development of news can be accessed on an accelerated level. The path of how we access our daily news has matured to a multifaceted number of platforms, that is the acceleration of 24 hour news cycle a primary tool that is surmountable to further advances, that traditional news methods will fade over time… or will we  stand by tradition.