Before we get into the story proper, we at PC.com would like to send out heartfelt prayers to the passengers and crew members of MH370 and their families. We’ve been tracking the story and are deeply affected by the situations happening at the airports in Sepang and Beijing, the anxiety and tension that is running rampant on the Web, and the confusion that everyone seems to be caught up in.
Now…let’s begin. Since the announcement Malaysian Airlines (MH or MAS as many favours to call the airline company still) made this morning at 7.24am (Saturday) about the China-bound flight going missing and having lost all contact with the aircraft at 2.40am, many have started seeking out any scrap of information they could find to piece the development together and keep abreast of the situation.
Among them are the ever growing cache of pro-active citizen journalists who go out of their way to help major news portals/companies by sharing whatever they can come across. While usually this sort of ‘help’ is sincerely appreciated, often times it may cause the entire issue to go haywire. In this instance, the emergency alert that many Malaysians had woken up to in shock and worry has become an unnecessary emotional roller coaster ride for MAS officials, on-site and international investigators, news rooms, and, those who count the most – loved ones of the passengers and crew.
By all intents and purposes, developing news should have a proper and legit channel to be disseminated from. That means any information of MH370 must come from MAS, the investigative authorities, the Malaysian and Chinese governments, and official news groups. However, thanks to Citizen Journalism and some ‘helpful sources within MAS and so on’, many ‘you heard it from me/here first’ material started appearing. Guess where these unconfirmed and non-official details started appearing? Social media.
Since the news broke, we quickly noticed that many want to share what is happening and include their thoughts and prayers as well. Before official channels could form a proper and cohesive narrative and timeline of what has transpired, both Facebook and Twitter had been flooded with postings, ‘I heard from a friend of a friend who works at so and so’, re-tweets, claimed thoughts and theories, ‘first-hand information’, and the like. For the first time in history, an aviation incident that is global in nature has become a cyberspace phenomenon that the news networks have no control over (or as some would say, totally lost control of). Everyone who is anyone shared any information they had about MH370 .
Just a few hours after MAS made its first announcement, a rumour about the missing flight making an emergency landing at Nanning, China surfaced (at 12.30pm, Saturday). Authorities quickly moved to disprove that claim. It is unfortunate that TV3 published the news and stirred hope for some before it had to make a retraction. Then another report, which many large news networks carried immediately, appeared – one about the Vietnamese Navy Admiral stating that military radar had recorded the plane crashing into the sea at a location 153 miles South of Phu Quoc island. This had been denied as fact by Malaysian Transport Minister Datuk Seri Hishamuddin Hussein (2.36pm, Saturday). By then, it became clear to news organisations that they can no longer properly decipher what information they are getting. In short, they can’t tell what is fact from fiction.
Do you see the problem here? The social networks, powerful media tools that work to disseminate information quickly, have now become more of a bane than boon for media outlets. Even authorities (Malaysian and Chinese governments, MAS, investigators, industry experts, as well as search and rescue operations) have partially given up on being the primary source of updates as they now resort to checking out every possible lead that appear on social networks. News channels CNN and BBC have also begun to follow trails that come up on FB and Twitter as the dire situation intensifies with tensed anxiety.
While we at PC.com encourage Citizen Journalism, we also want to remind everyone that all of us should be sharing information responsibly and to always do a background check before posting details about MH370. The same goes for any ‘fact’ you may find as well, in regards to the current situation at hand or on anything else.
At press time, Malaysian Prime Minister, Dato’ Seri Mohd Najib Razak, had announced the following statements during his emergency press conference (720pm, Saturday):
– Rescue operations will continue for as long as it takes and will intensify throughout the coming hours (experts on other news channels confirmed air search had been called off due to low visibility at night)
– Aircraft manufacturers and the Federal Aviation Authority (USA aka FAA) have offered to help
– Satellite imagery cannot be utilised as it will not be able to detect anything below water surface
– Advises the public not to indulge in speculation, saying: “We cannot make conclusions as we are investigating all possible avenues”
– Currently, a large search and rescue operation, comprising ships and aircraft from ASEAN nation members, China, Australia, and the US are deployed around the South China Sea waters to locate the aircraft. Similar efforts are also being carried out at the last known presumed location the flight has lost contact with air control over Vietnam
These are facts that can be shared but keep in mind that you should not include any conspiracy theories and the like as well.
So where do we get the latest development on the MH370 incident then?
Of course, the very source where official details would come from:
http://www.malaysiaairlines.com/my/en/site/dark-site.html
https://www.facebook.com/my.malaysiaairlines
http://www.thestar.com.my/News/Nation/2014/03/08/Missing-MAS-flight-Timeline/
http://my.news.yahoo.com/mas-aircraft-goes-missing–says-airline-023820132.html
http://my.news.yahoo.com/-prayformh370–concern-over-mas-flight-floods-cyberspace-025740639.html
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/07/travel/malaysia-airliner-analysis/
http://edition.cnn.com/2014/03/07/world/asia/malaysia-airlines-plane-missing/index.html
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26492748
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/08/malaysian-airlines-plane-live
(Story in development)
