Nokia Project

It would appear we are on to something...

Amanda Congdon and the N93

The Nokia N70: The type of cell phone Albarghouti used to capture the video.

Jamal Albarghouti put his life on the line as he whipped out his cell phone to take video of the chaos around him. Unaware of what fully was going on, Albarghouti continued to take video

His video ran continuously throughout the day on CNN. Later, reporters on site did traditional stand-ups and updates as a part of the all-day news coverage. But it was Albarghouti’s citizen journalism coverage that hit America the most. That’s the thing about citizen journalism and how technology has made it a possibility for viewers to be on the scene. In this case, citizen journalism allowed the most real news coverage anyone could ever get. Updates throughout the day had people talking, “I heard this, I heard that…,” but it was Albarghouti’s citizen video that put people at the scene. The cell phone vid sent chills down viewers’ spines as they watched intently.

The actual video also is news in itself, and that can be seen by the feedback Albarghouti got when he received multiple facebook messages making sure he was okay, after people saw him in danger from his CNN appearance. Those who didn’t even know Albarghouti could easily contact him through the online network in a matter of seconds, something unheard of not very long ago.

The Virginia Tech shootings coverage exemplifies what is happening in our generation of news reporters and news watchers. Technology and citizen journalism make for more genuine coverage, faster response times, and more involvement of those who watch the news.

News no longer belongs to corporations.
Screen grab from LiveJournal.com

Wiki-news, not mere citizen journalism, rolled out the news of yesterday's horrorific shootings at Virginia Tech University. Information came not only from degree-holding arbiters of What's News, but from folks literally in the line of fire.

The Roanoke Times disdained using the traditional format for the story, instead opting for moment-by-moment blogging by several reporters. AP producers and reporters jumped online to use Facebook, blogs, Xangas, and email to find student sources for their stories, like Mr. Resnick from Washington (right).

Jamal Albarghouti's cell phone video wasn't the only submission from wiki-reporters, though. CNN had about 100 additional content submissions—video, photos, and enough heresay to worry any newspaper's lawyer. (For example, some folks quickly misidentified an innocent but "Asian" student and vilified him online before the alleged culprit, South Korean student Cho Seung-Hui, was named.)

We saw mistakes and outright dumb speculation, it's true. We also saw as much information (or even more than) the official news gatekeepers at the scene provided. As a journalism student, I want to work to get the story right; but I also want as much information as possible. Wiki-news will allow some mistakes to slip through, but I'll let that bother me as soon as newspapers become mistake-free themselves.