There is little to add to the acres of coverage about the shootings at Virginia Tech. You could go back and watch Michael Moore's 'Bowling for Columbine' and then ask why nothing's changed; you could wonder why American politicians, from the president down, wring their hands over such events and proceed to do precisely nothing about the principal element of American society - gun ownership - which makes such repetitions inevitable. In news terms, however, the First Post carries an interesting article about how the event represents the coming of age of 'Citizen Journalism'. The first reports, and the first images and even movies, came from ordinary students who quickly recoursed to mobiles and internet blogs to record what was happening. Their alacrity left the mainstream media lagging considerably. There is a fascinating immediacy and primacy about such reports but, as is also noted in the article, such citizen journalism carries no form of perspective - no editing, not much judgement, just raw, chaotic, event driven narrative. On reflection, not so different from 24 hour news then.
Top image from 'First Post'
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