It’s April 16th 2007. You’re a producer at NBC, where you’ve been working for the past 10 years. A package arrives at your desk. It’s already open; half of its contents are spilling out.
“Take a look at this, boss,” The young intern says, in between gasps for fresh air.
You pull out the contents: a 23 page article (at least you think it’s an article), a bunch of photos, and simple small, black flash-drive.
Curious to find out what the intern is so panicked about, you slide in the flash-drive as you look through the pictures that lie before you. They’re pictures of a young, verbal and animated man, holding fierce-looking weaponry. You’re confused. So you click on the videos inside the flash-drive… And what you see makes your head go cold.
“Where did this package come from?” You ask the intern.
“Virginia Tech.” He says. “What should we do, boss?” He asks, still quite visibly worried.
“The only thing we can.” You reply, “Contact the school.”
…
On April 16th 2007, 23 year old Seung- Hui Cho decided he had had enough. In a raid aimed at his fellow students in Virginia Polytechnic Institute, young Cho became the perpetrator and assassin behind the now infamous “Virginia Tech shootings”, which resulted in 33 deaths (including his own) and 25 injuries.
A presentation by Monika Tesiorowski and Rachel Goss during the 10:00am Journalism class took a closer look at this chilling massacre, and shed some light on the ways in which journalism is slowly changing into a socially constructed phenomenon.
“News was coming from multiple sources,” Said Monika and Rachel during their presentation, “The Collegiate Times, their Flickr page, their Twitter page… Wikipedia, however, brought them all together.”
Now if you’ve been following the weekly class presentations, you’ll notice this was the first time that Twitter was ever used to inform and connect media houses, which had no other means of obtaining first-hand information from the scene of the crime.
Tweets from the school newspaper such as:
“Gun shots reported- Coliseum Parking lot. Stay Inside. Secure doors. Emergency personnel responding. Call 911 for help.”
And:
“BREAKING: It appears one person is dead in the Coliseum parking lot. Washington Street and area are closed. #virginiatech”
kept media houses in the loop, as they themselves sent out tweets such as:
“Call our newsroom if you know anyone that goes to Virginia Tech” (WKBW)
And:
“Hey #vatech – looking to speak & get updates from students on campus” (Joe Danielewicz of CBS news).
What was the most surprising about this whole experience (to me, at least) was the efficiency with which this communication system worked. Within minutes, a dialogue between the media houses and students at Virginia Tech was on going and flowing, which provided a constant source of information for affected family members, the police, as well as the general public.
What I learned from this presentation was how much can be achieved when even the slightest amount of journalistic knowledge is present amongst a group of people; be they students, professionals in other fields, the general public… I learned that collaborative efforts such as this can add so much value to the amount and quality of information released and produced; and the fact that when put to good use, social websites such as Twitter and Facebook can actually be really beneficial.
Just a thought: What if basic journalism classes were free and open to the general public? What if UBC (for example), had more than this one journalism course in the entire Undergraduate system? Wouldn’t news circulation be so much better? Wouldn’t we have so much more to report? Hmmm…
Be blessed.
Joy.
Disclaimer: The introductory narrative might deviate slightly from the actual events at NBC, but the general message and course of action reflect what actually took place. For more information, click here.