News

As it turns out, it’s not the broad strokes that count. It’s not the footage of planes flying into the World Trade Center or the 120-point headlines that shout news of the tsunami. No, apparently it’s the little things that have the biggest impact.

“1st thing male survivor said: I ate a lot of PB & J. Beautiful moment amid so much misery. Rescuers now going back to work searching rubble.”

“Police shot 20 yo woman from street as she scavenged on roof. Dead. Other looters raided her pockets. Change rolled off roof.”

“Please send some help here.”

These messages, like telegrams from the banks of the River Styx, showed up in my Twitter feed in the days after the Haiti earthquake. Originally posted to the micro-blogging site from journalists and Haitians on the ground in the ruined city, they were re-tweeted into wide circulation. Not coincidentally, the public’s response, largely through online and SMS donations, was tremendous.

Much was made of this, but one of the obvious reasons why was overlooked.

Tweets come from people you know – or at least that’s how you feel about them. The feeling of community extends even to people you don’t know who have merely been “re-tweeted” by someone you do. By comparison, newspaper headlines, even ones saying the same thing, seem to signify other people’s disasters.

Unlike conventional news stories, which hew – for good reason – to formula, and which we read on our terms, these raw missives from the epicentre came among the usual updates about a botched haircut or how Ishtar has held up over the years.

“About suffering, they were never wrong,” poet W. H. Auden, who was also never wrong, wrote, “… How it takes place/ While someone else is eating or opening a window or just walking dully along.” Maybe precisely because they were so incongruous, the tweets made the disaster that much more tangible.

They were also intensely personal. Instead of writing themselves out of the story, these journalists let you know how it felt to be them. Jay Newton-Small, Time magazine’s political commentator, wrote from Port-au-Prince, “@ dinner tonite yucky drunken US expats grilling steak & drinking beer, watching 100s of homeless victims sing their pain. THIS IS NOT A SHOW.”

They wrote about how it felt to be trapped in gunfire, or about the guilt they felt. “2late, 2late [the Haitians] say. I tell myself that i'm doing more good writing than digging, but it's hard not to agree w/them. Heart wrenching” wrote Ms. Newton-Small. Everything, the tragedies they witnessed, the fears they felt, came to you as it came to them – with none of the solace that order brings.

There are reasons why news doesn’t – and shouldn’t – always take this form. At its worst, it can be sensationalistic, emotionally strong-arming the reader to get them on side. But these posts weren’t masquerading as impartial news. They were just human beings airing out their guts. Some would call it unprofessional; others might call it oversharing. But in the end, it brought the tragedy home.