This morning’s shooting at Virginia Tech is destined to become one of those cornerstone events in citizen journalism and participatory media. When news breaks in a location where nearly everyone has a camera-equipped cell phone, and where Internet connectivity abounds, people on the spot will be supplying as much coverage as news organizations — if not more.
Doubtless in coming days we’ll be poring over the first-person blog entries, Twitter posts, forum discussions, Flickr photos, podcasts, moblogs, YouTube videos, and more from those unfortunate enough to be on that campus today. The most poignant content will get highlighted and examined; the harshest and most tasteless will get excoriated.
But I have no doubt that reports, images, and sound supplied by people on the spot today will play a key role in forming the public memory of this horror.
Citizen journalism and other first-person accounts are getting more attention and respect, especially during disasters — deservedly so, I think. But I can’t help but wish that this burgeoning aspect of the media landscape could get known for on-the-spot coverage of something unexpectedly positive and beautiful.
Guess it’s just part of a larger issue: big news is rarely good news. That doesn’t vary much based on who’s covering it, or how.
UPDATES: Tidbits contributor Steve Klein notes the Va. Tech campus paper, The Collegiate Times, has been
doing updates since 9:47 a.m., starting with when shots were fired. Also, contributor Mac Slocum poses some hard questions about citizen journalists putting themselves in harm’s way.
