Timely tweets in a maritime hour of need

CB204 is a Royal Malaysian Navy assault boat with a crew of 7. It left its home port at the break of dawn from our naval base in Teluk Sepangar, Kota Kinabalu together with the mother ship KD Paus. Some six hours into its journey, it encountered particularly bad weather – remember Typhoon Phanfone hit Japan over the weekend, and lashing rains caused such upheaval at the Suzuka F1 race. Indeed, the weather was to blame for the unfortunate accident that has left F1 rookie, the French driver Jules Bianchi hospitalised with a serious head injury. Back to maritime matters.

It was at 6:11 pm Monday that twitterville was alive with the tweet the whole nation had been waiting for : Kota Kinabalu being so far away, and Awani was rather overly dependent on the crowded diary of its sole part time representative there, we were rather in a fix in trying to follow the SAR direct from the location.

We would indeed have been better off had we subscribed to the bush telegraph but fortuitously – to the rescue came the timely tweets of; wait for it – Navy Chief Tan Sri Abdul Aziz Jaafar himself!

He updated his twitter account regularly on the search efforts and all Awani had to do was to follow him religiously throughout the day.

So here we have first hand, unexpurgated nor burnished news; straight from the Admiral-in-white-suit himself, informing everyone of the progress of the search.

First there was the initial tweet providing background information about what happened. Then there came the news that the missing boat had made contact through VHF radio. And finally – bingo, contact; at 1820hrs on Monday, more than 30 hours after the ordeal unfolded.

It is at times like this that the power of social media is without doubt, a power for good.

Awani could report on the progress of the search, secure in the knowledge that the source was from the chief himself. Indeed, we did get to speak to him traditionally via a telephone call during our Monday noon Buletin at mid-day. Our coverage was facilitated no end by the simple expedience of referring to this constantly updated tweet.

Now, if only others keen to project a certain image of themselves were as practically savvy and equally open minded as our good Admiral.

The way information was handled (or rather mangled and manhandled) by the powers that be during the MH370 incident comes quickly to mind.

In times of crisis, there is no running away from divulging the bald truth. The more transparent one is, the less hiding or equivocating one has to do to explain oneself. Remember, one lie leads to another, and it would require a bigger one to cover the previous untruth.

So all’s well that ends well.