Afternoon Magazine Archives

Andy Carvin on his book, Distant Witness

 

During the Arab Spring, almost everyone got their news from Twitter, and one man managed to make himself a hub for a lot of a newsreaders. Andy Carvin works for NPR, but he's not a reporter. Last year, Carvin Tweeted incessantly, sometimes over one hundred times an hour, spreading videos, rumors and stories that would have unnoticed from across Egypt, Libya and Tunisia. Carvin provided important context for many readers, but some media critics were uncomfortable with Carvin's retweeting of unverified rumors, and the fact that he did all of his Tweeting from outside of the middle east. Carvin has now written a book about the Arab Spring called Distant Witness.