Citizen Journalists Help Tell The Virginia Tech Story

As part of what CNN calls its I-Report, students and others on the Virginia Tech campus were sending their cell phone still pictures and video into CNN’s Atlanta headquarters, and they were getting a good airing.

One video, which was really nothing too special except you could hear the sound of gun shots, the network showed time and time again and an anchor said early in the day he had been told by the control room the video had been accessed already 120,000 times on the CNN web site.

The other noticeable thing on the coverage is that in the old days it used to be the news organization ringing around trying to get information. Now, with everyone carrying a cell phone, it seemed a lot of Virginia Tech students had the CNN phone number and were not shy in phoning in to tell their story. In a couple of cases they even sent a still picture of themselves so that as they were being interviewed via the phone up popped their picture on screen.

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What struck one as really remarkable about CNNs coverage, however, is that it didn’t really have any on-the-ground coverage of its own. That you expect in the early going, but not for all the hours that CNNI showed the incident live. During that time the on-the-scene coverage all came from affiliate stations plus continual repeats of the same limited video footage provided by those affiliates. All the “reporting” was done by the anchors in Atlanta, mostly getting their information from the wires. If it wasn’t for the students calling in and their I-Report coverage, CNN’s own-produced coverage would have been lean to say the least.

Bad weather probably prevented getting anyone in by air to the remote Blacksburg, Virginia campus – and it is such situations that are a news organization’s worst nightmare -- but the lack of on-the-ground people for so long really stood out.

Another interesting point was how on the number of dead CNN continually quoted the AP. With no one on the ground itself, a CNN doesn’t like to report casualty numbers that it cannot independently confirm. So standard practice is that when a news source gives casualty numbers that are different from what officials are saying then to cover one’s bottom the practice is to give credit (or blame) where credit (or blame) belongs. The AP probably never had so much credit on a CNN live breaking news coverage as it did on that story.

No question this is a huge US media event and all of the networks have sent most of their top anchors to Virginia -- there will be specials galore and extended network newscasts with that type of programming lasting at least a couple of days. CNN is canceling a couple of days of Larry King’s 50th anniversary programming so Larry can report live on the incident for a couple of days.

And all of that is understandable for the US, but is this the type of story that required hours and hours of live coverage on CNNI? FTM has often complained when CNNI or BBC world cut off coverage of live international events – live events are, after all their heritage – but on the other hand there’s not that blanket coverage from other places in the world when dozens are killed, notable exception being the London subway bombings which on a technical basis made it easier to handle being CNN’s European Atlanta.

Granted Virginia Tech turned out to be the biggest shooting slaughter in US history and granted it is a story that grabbed international headlines, but for a 24-hour cable news network that has worked so hard to prove to the world it is an “international” news network and not a “US” news network then that US live coverage seemed overboard once the incident was over and the shooter was known to be dead. The only real question remaining was exactly how many had died, and while that updated during the day did that require continual coverage for international viewers?

No doubt the folks at CNNI will respond, “damned if we do and damned if we don’t!” But it really just takes a little common sense and an understanding of the international audience.

The bloggers were out in force early-on with a mostly similar theme – predicting the news events of the next few days: anyone who is anyone will deplore the violence; there will be calls for more gun legislation; the gun lobby led by the National Rifle Association will resist; the TV shows will ask why there is so much violence at US schools; excessive use of video games will get blamed and after the funerals and a couple of weeks of all this it’s back to where we were.

And then there were the students themselves blogging almost from the start on their experiences. There were plenty of quotes from the beginning on what students saw, how they felt. Even the college newspaper was online reporting events as they trickled in, right from the beginning.Yet more examples of how the Internet has changed the way breaking news can be covered these days.

Perhaps the most ironic statement by an I-reporter came from one who said a friend, serving in Iraq, phoned to see if he was safe – a phone call that is usually made in the opposite direction.

In its own way that puts the Virginia Tech incident into the true US perspective, and not one that Americans should feel comfortable with.

Citizen Journalists Help Tell The Virginia Tech Story

Watching the tragedy at Virginia Tech unfurl via CNNI has brought home how important civilian journalists have become to the telling of breaking news on television.