In July 2005, 52 people were killed when four separate explosions rocked London during the morning rush hour. Survivors escaped through underground tunnels capturing footage on their camera phones. It was the first time the BBC led a bulletin with 'user-generated content'. In July 2016, the failed Turkish coup was caught on Periscope and Facebook Live by hundreds of people picking up their smartphones and broadcasting live. This lecture will examine the last decade of social newsgathering, highlighting what has changed and what hasn't. There will be a discussion of the logistics of social discovery and verification as well as the ethical considerations of protecting eyewitnesses when publishing this type of content, and ensuring journalists and audiences are not impacted by the increasingly graphic imagery that is emerging from breaking news events.

Claire Wardle is the Research Director at Columbia University's Tow Center for Digital Journalism. She is also the co-founder of Eyewitness Media Hub, a non-profit initiative committed to providing content creators and publishers with continuing research and resources. She is one of the world’s experts on user-generated content, and has led two substantial research projects investigating how it is handled by news organizations. In 2009, she was asked by BBC News to develop their Social Newsgathering and Verification training program. She went on to train over 3000 journalists in newsrooms around the world. She was also the Director of News Services for Storyful, and Senior Social Media Office at the UN Agency for Refugees (UNHCR). Wardle holds a PhD in Communications and an MA in Political Science from the University of Pennsylvania. She also sits on the World Economic Forum’s Global Agenda Council on the Future of Information and Entertainment.