COMMENTARY, Jan 7 — In this day and age when everything is documented with your smartphone — from what you had for breakfast, to what comes out of you 20 minutes later — the immediacy of this kind of “reporting” made the plight of nearly 250,000 flood victims more personal to the rest of the country, compared to just reading about it in the newspapers.

Gone are the days where you pick up the papers in the morning, read about some murder, war and natural disasters and then fold it up when you’re done and go about with your life.

There is an inevitable barrier between the subject and the reader when even the most personal stories are reported by traditional media, with videos or photographs taken by professionals.

The recent floods that hit so many states in Malaysia was a superb case in point that people no longer needed the media to get the news out. They could do it themselves now.

Even before the authorities realised the full extent of what was initially regarded as “just another annual flood”, residents in Kelantan, Terengganu and Pahang as well as other states were sending up-to-the minute reports on the water levels, conditions of their homes and updates on which roads were no longer accessible via their Facebook and Twitter accounts.

These were then reposted and retweeted many times.

Even Instagram which is usually populated with just happy pictures of endless brunches and selfies started to become a place to share pictures of the devastation.

It was difficult to digest the pictures of completely submerged houses, videos of roads that looked like rivers with floating washing machines and mattresses. It was like a scene out of some other country’s disaster… Hurricane Katrina, anyone?

The only reminder that this was happening here was that they were posted by families of friends or friends of friends. Strangers, separated only by one or two degrees from someone you know.

It was no surprise that netizens were the ones who knew first how desperate the situation really was and started organising efforts to send supplies to the victims, and even got together groups to head out to see what they could do to help.

This despite it being New Year’s week when most people were already planning to go on their annual vacation. Many did not wait for the authorities to set up a channels to inform people about what was needed to be sent to flood victims, where to send them to and how.

File photo of a man making his way to his house submerged in floodwaters in Pengkalan Chepa, near Kota Baru, Kelantan on December 28, 2014. — AFP pic

Groups as well as individuals who took that first step to just voice out their intention to help either on Facebook or Twitter received tremendous response.

One such example was Syed Azmi Alhabshi who got a US firm to deliver aid directly to Marang, Terengganu in one of its helicopters. For free.

He was not the only “hero.” Social media is full of stories of these amazing Malaysians who took flood relief efforts into their own hands.

Sure, traditional media companies as well as online news portals have sent out reporters to cover the floods on the ground.

Volunteers under the Free Market’s flood relief initiative load donated supplies onto a truck, December 27, 2014. — Picture courtesy of Syed Azmi Alhabshi

But no matter how personal the story reported, nothing beats looking at a friend’s post of his younger cousin looking helplessly as her things floated away or watching a baby fall asleep in a pail floating on the floodwaters as his father sings to him.

This drives home the message that social media is bringing us the news right here, right now.