The blog Second City CEO broke an interesting story related to the VT shooting within hours."…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."
Many, including Poynter, continue to preach the established line that citizen journalism's greatest value is having eyes and ears on site when horrible, breaking news happens.
However, those paying attention will note that other content not related to shaky cell phone video appeared at the same time. A real, honest to god news story, the kind that looks like the beginnings of investigative journalism, was broken by a blogger:
Breaking News: People Already Profiting from Virginia Tech Shooting
At Second City CEO, the writer noted that within minutes of the news of the shooting, horror speculators started snapping up site names related to the massacre. Some examples (of dozens listed):
virginiatechshooting.com
virginiatechmassacre.com
vtmassacre.com
vtshooting.com
Wired News picked up on the story (and gave credit), then fleshed it out with some more research and information. While this story is not as important as direct coverage of the shootings, it is valuable information that tells us something of the culture we live in and the parasites that feed off that culture.
It also shows that the citizen journalists can do more than just hold a camera and point it at what is happening. They can think, analyze, research and break a story all by themselves. Over and over, I've seen journalists comment that citizen journalism's greatest value is in breaking news coverage. They can be there when we can't. Maybe thinking that makes some journalists feel safe. If that's what CitJ is good for, then our jobs are still safe. We'll still do the important stuff, the stories that require more than a video cell phone. I really don't think CitJ will replace us either, but as it grows, we will discover value in it far beyond just breaking news.
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