Media critics look at online Virginia Tech coverage
Posted by
Martin Stabe
on 18 April 2007 at 08:49
Tags: ABC, Blogs, CNN, Citizen journalism, Ethics, Journalism, Livejournal, Mobile Phones, NBC, New Media, Photography, blogging, onlinejournalism, usa, video
For a second day, there is much analysis from bloggers and media commentators about the online coverage of the Virginia Tech massacre.
Canadian journalism educator Mark Hamilton says it would be wrong to describe the Virginia Tech story as just another “victory” for the development of citizen journalism. We’re well beyond that stage, he suggests.
“What yesterday showed me was the new mediascape in action, a potent mix of journalists, witnesses and aggregators telling the story better than any of them could alone,” writes Hamilton in an excellent roundup an analysis.
Despite isolated examples of terrible journalism and terrible blogging, Hamilton concludes that both the professionals and the blogosphere’s irregulars did sterling journalism.
One particular item from the new mediascape that has attracted a lot of attention is student Jamal Albaughouti’s mobile phone video of the shootings, which was uploaded to CNN’s citizen journalism portal and has been viewed more than 2 million times. Jeff Jarvis criticises CNN’s apparent exclusivity deal with Albaughouti. Jarvis notes that the video is already available on YouTube.
“The value of an exclusive today lasts about 30 seconds,” Jarvis concludes.
NewAssignment.net’s Steve Fox, meanwhile, argues that the video “had no inherent news value and told no story.”
The London bombing showed us how anyone with a cell phone can capture images. But, that was after a news event had occurred. Our heralded citizen journalist captured sounds of people being killed, injured and maimed yesterday as it occurred.
Is this really the type of behavior to applaud, to train citizen journalists to take part in? More importantly, what’s the news here?
Finally, step back for a second. Play the video. And, imagine you have a son or daughter attending Virginia Tech, you can’t get ahold of them and you turn on CNN to find out some information and instead you come across that video.
Much attention is also focused on journalists’ use of students’ MySpace and Facebook pages to to make contact with and request interviews with victims and witnesses.
National Journal blogger Emily Goodin, for example, spots journalists from ABC and NBC television requesting interviews in this way.
Her commenters are very unimpressed. “maggots. feasting off the misery and horror of the families and friends of the victims,” writes Linda.
Journalist and Livejournal user Adam Tinworth, meanwhile, describes it the practice as “digital doorstopping“, and just a new form of journalism’s “long and dishonourable tradition” of treating victims of tragedies in this way.
Livejournal’s community architecture, Tinworth argues, makes it likely to seem like a semi-private place to its regular users, making outsiders’ overtures seem particularly intrusive.
“Barging into that community and asking for comment feels not unlike barging into a pub and asking somebody for comments,” Tinworth writes.
But in Slate magazine, media critic Jack Shafer praises journalists who have coldly pursued the story among the victims. It would be even worse if they didn’t pursue the story, he argues. In fact, he suggests, “viewers would riot”.
Update: Dan Gillmor of the Center for Citizen Media has an essay on his blog which will be published today as an op-ed piece in the Washington Examiner. His eloquent conclusion is worth noting:
We used to say that journalists write the first draft of history. Not so, not any longer. The people on the ground at these events write the first draft. This is not a worrisome change, not if we are appropriately skeptical and to find sources we trust. We will need to retool media literacy for the new age, too.
