E-Media Tidbits

If you are a news company, are a subscriber to all major wire services, and you have your own reporters in every corner of the world, will you ever feel under-informed? Obviously yes, or how else would you explain that BBC News yesterday asked its readers for help in covering a breaking news story? Yesterday, shots were being heard in Damascus. Obviously nobody knew exactly what was happening, news feeds from the agencies were only dripping, and the BBC's own reporter couldn't add much background very fast. The BBC published some basics and asked its readers to add more details: "Are you in the Damascus area? Did you witness the blasts? Send us your comments using the form below." Five reader comments and a much more detailed article are on the site right now. It is not disclosed how many people have sent in comments and how much editing and fact checking was done by BBC News before publishing. However, this looks like a clever way to dress up your coverage even from far-away places and to involve your readers beyond letting them criticize the results of your brainwork.