In Haiti earthquake coverage, social media gives victim a voice

In this article the author, Mercedes Bunz, talks about how social media helped the victims during the earthquake in Haiti.  She begins by talking about how during the earthquake, and a while after the main form of communication was through social media.  “User-generated content played an important role yesterday in spreading news about the Haiti earthquake” Bunz says.  She goes on to talk about how through Twitter people were able to get an impressive picture on what was happening.  Also that the BBC was using tweets along with the work of reporters to cover what was happening.  

She goes on to talk about how CNN uses what it calls the iReport on their website to provide people with information.  The iReport is a section on their website where people can upload videos with contact information.  Through this medium people were uploading material on what was happening, and through that, shortly after the quake at least 200 quake reports were uploaded to CNN, with an additional 200 missing persons reports.  They increased traffic 240% over a September-October benchmark.  She finishes by talking about how CNN was not only used to report the news, but also to connect people, giving the victims a voice, and helping them find relevant information.  As well as informing the public about what was happing, at almost a real-time speed.