Since I was on vacation last week, I didn't pore over news websites' coverage of the London bombings the way I normally would for such a story. But catching up on the previous week, I have been looking over
BBC News' Web coverage. As usual, the BBC News site excels at citizen journalism, running witness accounts, photos, and videos. It has a long history of encouraging public participation in the news.
I think what we saw last week on the BBC site starts to point to the future of news coverage. You'll find in its bombing coverage a mixture of professional journalists' work and citizens' contributions. Among the latter, there are witness experiences in their own words; witness photos and videos; and reader discussion forums.
You'll also spots witness accounts, photos, and videos used as the basis for reports by BBC journalists, such as professional voiceovers on camera-phone witness videos.
As a site visitor seeking coverage of the bombings, I found myself skipping between professional reporters' and citizens' accounts. Each had value; each was interesting. I was aware which was which -- amateur or professional.
The point for me is that this combined pro/amateur coverage was better than professional coverage alone. I think this is the future of journalism: a collaboration between paid reporters, and citizens who are intimately involved in a story having the tools to tell their personal stories. Done right -- and BBC News is as close as I've seen to doing it right -- this represents better coverage of a big story.
