Here's a nice, tidy little example of how stories get born in this brave new citizen journalism world. Story: Asshat motorist throws beef patty out car window onto crowded street; crazed bike messenger thoughtfully returns it to him; brawl ensues involving thrown coffee, car keying and attempted mauling. The media play-by-play:
1. A random but interesting event, illustrating a larger problem (road rage, littering, asshattitude), happens on a city street.
2. A non-journalist photo blogger happens to capture photos and posts them to a middling popular web site: www.citynoise.org.
3. Word of the story gets out via links from progressively larger blogs.
4. Traffic skyrockets, issue sparks debate, at least one of the principals weighs in.
5. Story percolates up to the MSM, in this case Canada's largest daily, which publishes story about both the original incident and the power of the Internet to reflect on it: http://tinyurl.com/d3y46.
6. Unfortunately, the end of this story is also common-- middling popular web site crashes due to overwhelming number of hits. (At least it was down this morning.) Oh well, that's the curse of popularity for ya.
Personally as a card-carrying, secret-handshake-knowing member of the MSM, I think this is all good and fine and well. Everyone gets an interesting story; everyone's happy (well, except perhaps for now infamous littering asshat). Who says we can't all get along?
1. A random but interesting event, illustrating a larger problem (road rage, littering, asshattitude), happens on a city street.
2. A non-journalist photo blogger happens to capture photos and posts them to a middling popular web site: www.citynoise.org.
3. Word of the story gets out via links from progressively larger blogs.
4. Traffic skyrockets, issue sparks debate, at least one of the principals weighs in.
5. Story percolates up to the MSM, in this case Canada's largest daily, which publishes story about both the original incident and the power of the Internet to reflect on it: http://tinyurl.com/d3y46.
6. Unfortunately, the end of this story is also common-- middling popular web site crashes due to overwhelming number of hits. (At least it was down this morning.) Oh well, that's the curse of popularity for ya.
Personally as a card-carrying, secret-handshake-knowing member of the MSM, I think this is all good and fine and well. Everyone gets an interesting story; everyone's happy (well, except perhaps for now infamous littering asshat). Who says we can't all get along?
posted by Rebecca at 10:37 AM
2 Comments:
its citynoise.ORG not citynoise.COM
citynoise.COM isnet even a real site! :-o
Thanks, I fixed it on the post. It appears citynoise.com is a real site, but one focused on anti-snoring devices and something called "acoustical consultants" rather than interesting stories about Toronto. Live and learn.
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