San Diego station shows how to cover a major disaster online
Posted by
Martin Stabe
on 24 October 2007 at 13:00
Tags: Google Maps, Journalism, Television, YouTube, twitter
San Diego TV station News 8, whose reporter Larry Himmel who filed a report from outside his burning house yesterday, is doing some very impressive online reporting of the devastating wildfires on its patch
The station has responded to the crisis on its patch by taking down its entire regular web site and replacing it with a rolling news blog, linking to YouTube videos of its key reports (including Himmel’s), plus Google Maps showing the location of the fire.
There are links to practical information that their viewers will need at this time, inclduing how to contact insurance companies, how to volunteer or donate to the relief efforts, evacuation information and shelter locations.
It’s an exemplary case study in how a local news operation can respond to a major rolling disaster story by using all the reporting tools available on the Internet.
Update: Mark Potts has a great blog post looking at the online coverage of the fires. What’s missing from local media’s coverage, he says, is user-generated content. Not so at the San Diego NBC station, though.
Both the Los Angles Times and San Diego’s public broadcasting station KPBS are using Twitter to provide rapid, rolling updates of the fires. A piece on a Wired blog explains how to do it. Both are also among those tracking their fire coverage on Google Maps.
Tech blog GigaOm, though figures that thinks “traditional media have been hopelessly outdated in their coverage.” Eh?
The Wikipedia entry for the fires is also becoming an impressive resource. As is becoming common in major news events, Wikipedians are pulling together the news reports from many different primary sources to produce a continuously-updated account.
Tags: Google Maps, Journalism, Television, YouTube, twitter
