Virginia Tech update

A good post about the Virginia Tech shooting written by Jason Linton

A photo taken on a cellphone during the July 2005 attacks on the London Underground became one of the iconic images of the event--normally indicative of the limitations of the technology, its hazy, grainy wobble spoke volumes about the chaos and uncertainty of that day. It marked somethine of a watershed moment as well. Like never before, the immediacy and availability of content captured by non-traditional media sources had reached a certain primacy, not replacing traditional media sources, but enhancing those accounts considerably. In the aftermath of yesterday's tragedy at Virginia Tech, important details, jarring images, and on-the-ground accounts were provided by bloggers and cell-phone slingers, even as other online services helped a community steel themselves collectively.

Meanwhile over at Cybersoc.com,Robin Hamman debates journalists use of bloggers as a source of the story,especially under the conditions in which they were writing

"I wasn't the only person working for a news agency who yesterday turned to the blogs to find stories. In fact, an astonishing number of journalists tried to make contact with the author of the post by commenting on it."

Understandably some journalists were reluctant to use the information coming out of the blogs without getting independent verification whilst others seemed to jump at the chance to use this feed.

When you read some of the blogs such as this one you cannot help but get embroiled in emotion but as a journalist one has to stand back and try to take an objective view of the events.

The story here will once again develop into questions about the easy access to guns in the States and how yet again this has led to a shooting tragedy.