Swag Award of the Week June 16-21

I know I'm a tad later than usual with the Swag Award this week, but for days nothing really struck me enough as "swag-worthy" for a bit. Maybe my news/blog/entertainment/etc. etc. consumption levels were down. Maybe it was because my personal swag levels weren't at all-time highs. Who knows? We all have those weeks. Long story short, after watching this situation develop over the last few days I think the Iranian citizens are more than deserving of this weeks award. 

A few days back, I blogged about the Iranians using social media to send out images of the protests despite attempts by the government to deny such actions. The situation has grown from bad to worse. It has been announced that recorded votes from 50 cities were tarnished, accounting  for more than 3 million fraudulent votes. 

Fraudulent votes..sounds a lot the 2000 election here in the states do you think? Despite the fraudulent votes, the Guardian Council(read about this group if you're sure what they're about) maintains that the results are legitimate and that the 3 million votes were not enough to change the outcome. 

The citizens are outraged, and rightfully so. There are a few other concerns the people of Iran have regarding the elections however.

An excerpt from NY Times:

How did the government manage to count enough of the 40 million paper ballots to be able to announce results within two hours of the polls closing? How is it that Mr. Ahmadinejad’s margin of victory remained constant throughout the ballot count? Why did the government order polls closed at 10 p.m. when they often stay open until midnight for presidential races? Why were some ballot boxes sealed before candidates’ inspectors could validate they were empty? Why were votes counted centrally, by the Interior Ministry, instead of locally, as in the past? Why did some polling places lock their doors at 6 p.m. after running out of ballots?

A lot of concerns, valid ones at that don't you think? The death toll stands at 17, the Iranian government continues to go forward with the results as they are and the outrage continues around the country. Iran's reputation in the world has been bruised as a result of this ordeal and Britain has expelled two Iranian diplomats in response to the Iranian government expelling two British diplomats days earlier. 

The odds certainly seemed stacked against the people, but they continue to draw attention to the situation despite the governments attempts to quash it. Keep fighting the good fight, the end result may be a favorable one..a fair one at least.

Social media: reporting the news in ways traditional outlets can't

We all know that athletes, celebrities and the 18-32 demographic are huge proponents of social media outlets such as Facebook, Twitter & Myspace. These websites are so prevalent in our lives today, that it is almost hard to imagine what life was like before the invention of the "tweet."

There's nothing like reconnecting with your kindergarten crush 18 years later on Facebook to find out she's married with 3 kids at the age of 24, or "tweeting" about the wonderful burger and shake you had for lunch.  

Often times, social media outlets serve a greater purpose and have proven to be valuable resources during breaking news events, providing real-time, raw eyewitness accounts that traditional media outlets sometimes cannot provide. CNN is notorious for its user-generated content called "i-reports." CNN host Rick Sanchez calls his daily show "a national conversation," and he reads and responds to viewers comments through various social media outlets and uses those responses as talking points for his show.

In Iran, protests and violence have filled the streets in the aftermath of the that country's disputed presidential elections. Iranians have been organizing protests and sending photos and video to other media agencies around the world through Facebook & Twitter despite attempts to block such communication by the Iranian government. Cell phone service & text messages have already been severely crippled, but the effectiveness of the Iranian messages and images via Facebook and Twitter cannot be overstated.

The messages have been so effective, that the U.S. government sent a message to Twitter yesterday, asking them to delay their scheduled site maintenance because it would have occurred during a key time in Iran when people were actively "tweeting," posting videos and links. Twitter agreed and delayed the maintenance. 

Youtube has also been instrumental for Iranians, and users like "iranbefree.com" regularly post videos of the chaos surrounding the protests.

Videos like this one:

The Iranian government has forbidden all journalists from reporting on the protests without permission, severely crippling their effectiveness. The abundance of reporting by Iranians has filled this void, and the methods through which they are sending out their messages is changing foreign diplomacy and news gathering as we speak.

There is an ongoing debate about the effectiveness and necessity of using social media outlets to report and gather news. A great majority of tweets, links, and status updates are nonsensical, irrelevant posts, but that should not devalue the importance of these outlets during breaking news events. We've seen how these outlets, when used for meaningful purposes can provide access and insights that bonafide journalists are prohibited from capturing.

If you devalue the importance of social media then think about this... What if detainees at Abu Gharib in Iraq and Guantanamo could tweet, send facebook updates, and post videos about their time in prison? What do you think the response would have been from the U.S. and other nations around the world?? Something to think about...

Speaking of Rick Sanchez, here is a segment from one of his shows debating the effectiveness/necessity of social media in the news gathering process: