After being assigned to blog about the Virginia Tech Massacre, a mixture of emotions arose. First, there was an eerie feeling that surfaced since my previous blog post mentioned the Virgina Tech Shootings. Second, I had a sudden rush of attachment to the topic. In 2007 when the attacks occurred, my older sister was acting in a one-act play at the time called “Bang, Bang You’re Dead” which was based on the Columbine Massacre. Two years later, I had ended up doing the same play for my Theatre Arts class, which helped me better understand what goes on inside a school shooter’s mind.

After being informed with elaborate detail about school shootings through my involvement with Bang, Bang You’re Dead, it was interesting to hear about the Virginia Tech Massacre from a journalistic perspective.

One important theme that arose from the Virginia Tech Massacre is citizen journalism. A graduate student at Virginia Tech, Jamal Abarghouti recorded videos outside of Norris Hall where 30 were killed and 25 were wounded. Using the video camera on his cellphone, Abarghouti captured footage that displayed police offers’ reactions to the sound of gunshots coming from inside of the building. CNN’s I-report, “an initiative that allows people from around the globe to contribute pictures and video of breaking news stories from their own towns and neighborhood”, featured Abarghouti’s video and had 1.8 million hits within the span of one day. This video was also used by other news networks and frequently shown due to its audio recording of the gunfire.

Another significant aspect of the Virginia Tech Massacre was the use of social networking. News networks like CBS reached out to the public by tweeting whether any of their followers had any information concerning the shooting. Though, there was also a downfall in the use of social networking to get information. After listening to the NPR interview with the editor-in-chief of the Collegiate Times, Virginia Tech’s student newspaper, I learned about how a student reporter was finding more information on the event via Facebook. The editor in chief encouraged the reported to be critical of the information found on Facebook as it may not always be reliable.

Something I found particularly interesting in researching the Virginia Tech Massacre is that its impact still remains significant today. I literally mean today. An article from the Associated Press was released from Richmond on March 9^th outlining the civil suit surrounding the Virginia Tech Massacre. Parents of the deceased sued the university for not issuing a school-wide announcement earlier that the shootings had occurred. The first shooting occurred at 7:15 and there was no campus-wide alert that happened until 9:26 am. Virginia Tech President Charles Steger testified, “I tried my best.” The US education department fined Virginia Tech $55,000 in damages which the school is appealing.

Personally I feel that issuing a campus-wide alert was necessary but it is a sticky situation to be in when a shooting has occurred. Obviously the last thing you want is the swarm of reporters storming your campus and fuelling the fire. But the well being of the students should be the utmost priority. Though it was not only the President of the school who was put in a difficult position.

Journalistically speaking, reporters were put in a tough spot as they were putting stories out with faces of victims that their families may not have wanted to be put on the news. I feel that although the media tend to sensationalize school shooting stories, these events do need to be broadcasted for public information.

Frances Young

Wikipedia: college professors frown upon it while university students panic when the site goes down.

This online encyclopedia has come a long way since its debut on January 12, 2001. In allowing individuals all around the world the permission to edit and change information on the website, it epitomizes the ideal of participatory journalism. With over 100,000 regular contributors, cited by the Sydney Morning Herald, Wikipedia encourages it users to be bold in writing their posts. Due to the mass traffic that surrounds Wikipedia, individuals are more likely to get up-to-date information on a recent event since almost anyone can contribute to the news stories. The consumers of the media can now be the producers. One example that highlights this is the story of Natalie Martin. On the day of the Virginia Tech Massacre, Martin updated the page minute by minute and the site soon became one of the most popular news sources focused on this tragic event. Martin live edited the page by deleting offensive comments and bias.

As a news aggregator, Wikipedia focuses on the facts and concerns itself with taking out bias from stories. Personally, I think it’s naïve to believe that one can truly write something “unbiased”. Obviously there are some right or left wing news sources that are more blatant with their partiality in comparison to Wikipedia but to go around pronouncing, “We are an unbiased news source” seems too simplistic. It’s obviously easier said than done. In fact, Conservapedia, a website created by “self-described American conservative Christians, Andrew and Philip Schlafly” counters against Wikipedia’s so-called “liberal bias”. Granted, after actually looking through Conservapedia, it’s clear that Wikipedia is the more neutral source of information.

One paradox that I discovered with Wikipedia is that this ideal of allowing anyone to edit serves as both its’ forte and downfall. With more people changing and moderating information, the probability of creating mistakes increases. Johnathan Dee, a novelist and contributor to New York Times Magazine, wrote an article titled,  All the News that’s Fit to Print Out which highlights Wikipedia’s disposition to mistakes (or what he calls “deliberate acts of vandalism”) Dee continues on to talk about the diversity in contributors or “Wikipedians”. In the introduction, he writes about how a regular contributor CltFn created a page right after news broke loose about the arrest of half a dozen Muslim men planning to attack Fort Dix. After spending countless hours live editing throughout the day, CltFn announces that they’re “Off to bed”. The reader then learns that CltFn needs to ‘go to bed’ since they have to attend yet another day at High School.

When I was in High School, I was concerned with tanning on the beach and watching Friends re-runs, not the “Fort Dix Terror Plot”. It’s just remarkable to see the platform Wikipedia has given human beings to be able to report on issues occurring half way across the world, even if the reporting is happening simultaneously with Chemistry and Physics homework.