The tragic events that happened in Mumbai have once again pin pointed to the 21sth century’s biggest problem, terrorism. The events have been closely followed by a massive number of citizens using new media means of posting information on what was going down at the time.

People used Twitter, Flicker, personal blogs and even Google Maps to show what they knew and to share their experiences. This is odd as the whole amateur informing was a lot faster than traditional journalism, making the field reported some sort of transmitter of amateur footage and information.

It is said that the Indian government even asked Twitter to stop updating the site not to give away precious information to the terrorists. This just reveals what the online world can really do in such crisis situations. Blogs, YouTube, Twitter and even Google, if used well and with caution the news can actually be broadcasted faster and more efficient than ever.

Unfortunately, journalism still has an ace up its sleeve, and that ace is called professionalism and reliability. Journalists usually verify their data and are trained to offer information in such a way that it is useful. The twitter postings related to Mumbai were only valuable if taken as a whole, individually they lacked consistency.

As one can imagine it is quite difficult to read thousands of little posting on Twitter only to get a larger image of an event that is going on. On the other hand, new media environments have definitely proven their worth and with some work the way news are broadcasted might change after all.