SubscribeShooting the Shooting
Posted in Television, Citizen Journalism, Internet, News on April 26th, 2007. By Eduard F. Vinyamata.
Great tragedies, such as the one Virginia Tech suffered just last week, have become a way to clearly understand how deep media, journalism and communication have changed in just a few years.
The 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake, the 2005 London bombings, the Virginia Tech shooting just a few days ago: with each of these tragedies the figure of the Citizen Reporter and the role of the Internet as a source of information and communication are becoming an stronger, integral part in the news making process.
In this recent case, it was the video of student Jamal Albarghouti that offered one of the first documents of the shooting at Virginia Tech. A public debate was immediately raised about citizen journalism, authenticity and authority, and the protection of victims.
One of the things the Virginia Tech massacre showed us, from a communication point of view, is the value Citizen Reporters may bring to news making and how today, sometimes, the journalist isn’t the fastest and most reliable news source: " onclick="javascript:urchinTracker('/outbound/www.baltimoresun.com/news/nationworld/bal-te.media17apr17_0_7252873.story?coll=bal-nationworld-headlines_br_/');">social networking sites (Via PicturePhonning), like Facebook or MySpace were. In such dramatic, unexpected and immediate situations, traditional media is increasingly adapting the role pointing and getting out of the way.
´We live public lives on the web now.´ said Jeff Jarvis in CNNs Reliable Sources. In the case of the Virginia Tech shooting, that means the aura of the first hand reports of students, coupled with their newly achieved power to speak for themselves opens a discussion which can actually help to redefine the role of journalism nowadays, and brings a wider dimension to the discourse of power and media.
Co-written with Maren Hermans.
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