Mainstream journalists: Let Citj's do their job ; you do yours

The war is over. Citizen journalists have proven time and time again that, when it comes to crisis coverage, traditional media outlets can in no way compete with firsthand accounts by cellphone-armed citizen videographers for breaking news. As we journalists piece together the puzzle of how this affects our profession, one glaring message stands out: We know that citizen journalists play a vital role in covering breaking news like yesterday's shootings at Virginia Tech., and now it's time to figure out how we -- traditional journalists and citizen journalists -- can work together fulfill our role as public servants and do whatever we can to prevent this kind of thing from happening again.

Citizens journalists provided breaking footage of the 2004 tsunami in Thailand, the 2005 London subway bombings, Hurricane Katrina in 2006 and yesterday's shootings at VA Tech. Citizen journalists are doing this job, so professionals can focus on the bigger picture.

It's always been a competition between news outlets to see who can get the story first, who can get the breaking news, the newest information, the previously undisclosed tidbits from authorities, so they can draw viewers (and ad revenue) with titillating coverage. At the same time, on-scene professional journalists face the burden of providing the freshest info and can spend little time looking at the bigger picture. Citizen journalists nullify this whole process, and it seems that mainstream media are taking note. They know their reporters can never get that first shot of an incident, like Jamal Albarghouti did. What they need to recognize now is the opportunity that citizen journalists give them: the opportunity to provide meaningful analysis of crisis events and discuss what measures we can take to change the culture that we live in. Until young people stop seeing senseless public slaughter as the only answer to their problems, mainstream media need to encourage discussion about how to deal with this problem at a higher level than installing metal detectors in schools.

To report an event informs the public that something happened, but it rarely sheds light on why it happened. Journalists are oftentimes faced with such strenuous deadline pressures -- especially in the new media age of the Internet and 24/7 TV news cycle -- that they have little time to step back and look at the social context in which the event took place. When we see reports of events like the VA Tech. shooting, we see fragments of mayhem and are left with more questions than we started with. When we look at the psychological profiles of student shooters and aspects of the cultural conditions that might have prompted their actions, we can begin to understand and work to counter whatever forces motivated them to do such dastardly things.

The beauty of citizen journalism in crisis coverage is that it alleviates some of the pressure on mainstream journalists from reporting up-to-the-second news on events. It allows them some time and energy to step back and look at the issues, instead of just the actions. When we see isolated incidents in the news stripped from their social contexts we tend to assign responsibility to those immediately involved. When we step back and look at the broader social contexts in which events take place, we can start to see patterns and themes that permeate separate incidents. It's not enough that partisan documentary makers do this kind of work months or years after the fact (think Bowling for Columbine and When the Levees Broke). Mainstream media, from which most of the American public learns about what's happening in the world, needs to step up and start answering some of these questions themselves. Now.

Citizen journalism gives them an opportunity to do this. Professional journalists need to take that opportunity and run.