I founded GroundReport to give everyone a platform for sharing pivotal world news, immediately; I felt that no one could the convey the urgency of event like its actual witnesses.
The devastating Mumbai attacks illustrated that GroundReport has begun to fill its mission of democratizing the media.
Beginning less than an hour after the Taj Hotel siege, GroundReport published over 80 text and video reports throughout the attacks, breaking updates hours before mainstream media, and recruiting additional reporters via Twitter.
Below, a quick look at the media institutions that recognized GroundReport’s role in covering the Mumbai attacks. Deep thanks to all of our community for their bravery, support and relentless efforts.
GroundReport mentions in the media:
AFP: Twitter, blogs provide riveting accounts of Mumbai attacks Dozens of videos of the attacks were posted on YouTube although the vast majority appeared to be recordings of television reports rather than actual videos from the scene by eye-witnesses. Citizen journalists were also active sending video, photos and personal accounts to sites such as nowpublic.com/tag/Mumbai and groundreport.com.
BBC NEWS: Twitter – the Mumbai myths A site called GroundReport claims that it had a full report on the Mumbai attacks before the established media got out of bed. GroundReport publishes text and pictures from people on the ground and apparently recruited a number of Mumbai Twitterers to cover the story.
The Economic Times: Mumbai terror – live action unfolds on blogs, sms In blogosphere, Ajmer Alam writes in GroundReport.com, "Over the past year, India has become a testing area for terrorists. They plan and execute and if it works then similar attacks can be planned in some other parts of the world. In such circumstances a question arises: who is the winner? And the answer is of course the terrorists. They killed the man they wanted, ATS Chief.
The Guardian: In Mumbai, witnesses are writing the news The citizen-powered news sites GroundReport, Global Voices and NowPublic also gathered reports.
NDTV.com: Mumbai terror drama unfolds on Net The site has a wealth of multimedia footage culled from prominent news channels, including NDTV. Real-time coverage is also happening on Ground Report (https://www.groundreport.com/), Mumbai Metblogs (http://mumbai.metblogs.com/) and Global Voices Online (http://globalvoicesonline.org/2008/11/26/india-terror-attacks-continue-in-mumbai/).
The Age: Mumbai attacks reported live on Twitter, Flickr – web – Technology Online encyclopedia sites including Wikipedia and Mahalo, as well as the citizen media aggregators NowPublic and GroundReport are being constantly updated with new photos, videos and information from Mumbai.
Wired: Mumbai Attack Aftermath Detailed, Tweet by Tweet The local bloggers at Metblogs Mumbai have new updates every couple of minutes. So do the folks at GroundReport. Dozens of videos have been uploaded to YouTube. But the most remarkable citizen journalism may be coming from "Vinu," who is posting a stream of harrowing post-attack pictures to Flickr.
TechCrunch: First Hand Accounts Of Terrorist Attacks In India On Twitter, Flickr Twitter isn’t the place for solid facts yet – the situation is way too disorganized. But it’s where the news is breaking. GroundReport is doing a good job of aggregating citizen reports, and a Wikipedia page is being edited with the known facts so far.