Dear Mr. Fox,

I’m actually discussing the graphic Virginia Tech news coverage for an upcoming presentation in my media law and ethics class. I was wondering if you had any insight you could offer. Please email me back if possible.

Erin

I remember watching the reports from Virginia Tech too. I have many friends who watch such video. I disagree with you. I think these kind of videos are very important.

The Columbia Journalism Review had some interesting arguments against CNN and the MSM for using the video. It states:

Arguably the most stunning thing about Albarghouti’s footage is not what he was filming — it took repeated viewings to figure out exactly what it was that he captured — but the fact that he seemed to run toward the gunshots. We applaud — scratch that — we expect any cameraman worth his salt to move toward the action, but a grad student with no experience in these situations? Not so much. It seems more like a recipe for disaster than a brave new moment in citizen reporting.

What’s going to happen the first time one of CNN’s unpaid i-Reporters, or anyone else with a cell-phone camera who puts himself or herself in danger for the chance to record a bit of breaking news, gets seriously injured, or worse, killed, doing something like what Albarghouti did? The title “citizen journalist” has a nice ring to it, but in situations like the Virginia Tech shootings, the last thing anyone needs is a bunch of amateurs running around with their cell phones trying to get in on the action.

One thing that will happen, we suspect, is that CNN and the rest of these wall-to-wall news holes who bottomless appetite for cheap filler has done so much to lower journalistic standards, will no longer get this content for free.

I concur with them and you, Steve. Citizen journalists should magnify a story by involving themselves in it, and they have a great potential of doing so.

Being bondbarded by 24 hour news it almost seems as though I have become a bit numb to horrific events from what happened at Virginia Tech to what is happening in the Middle East. Just today 120 people were killed in Irag by a suicide bomber.

I remember watching the reports from Virginia Tech all day Monday. It wasn’t until I heard and saw the video clip you mentioned that it really struck me and what that young man had experienced. And I realized as he was recording this, people were dying. I broke down in tears.

That video will stay with me for life. I kindly disagree with you. I think these kind of videos are very important.

Steve,
We’re going to see much, much more sharing of news events like this — and, as I blogged, we’re going to see it live. Yes, that means we will see part of the story and misinformation sometimes. But who are we, the journalists, to say that we can handle that but the people can’t? I’d say it’s our job, instead, to give context and to add the value of journalism: reporting and fact-checking.

And I believe that video certainly had news value. It gave us one man’s perspective of a news event. It also showed us the future of news reporting.

Steve: Thanks for this piece. The dehumanizing that takes place in a 24-hour news cycle might be an unstoppable force, but we still need to question it, especially as citizen journalism becomes more and more of a factor.

Virginia Tech reports shooting (multiple)

Same argument can be made for any breaking news video: bank robbery, car chase, tsunami, hurricane, tornado, dui arrest, drug bust.
People love the stuff - cops love the stuff.
The world has changed. You can lament the change or accept it, but it won’t change back.