I woke up at 3 a.m. last night dealing with a sinus infection. It drove me to the basement couch where I turned on the television and was immediately taken with the images from Japan that I was seeing on CBS. I followed the story all day, listening to the live updates on the radio on the way in to school, checking CNN.com and the StarTribune.com for updates on tsunami damage and the growing threat of a Nuclear Meltdown. All of this is possible because we have professional journalists who are reporting accurate and important information.
Yes, they are showing pictures that citizen journalists have sent in, but it is the state media's, NHK, helicopter that is capturing the awesome pictures from the air of the Tsunami as it makes its way across the country. These pictures will tell us invaluable information about the behavior of tsunamis and will document this historic and horrific event in a way that no "new media" journalist can.
I saw an interview with a Reuters reporter from Tokyo, and he outlined the way that the government used the media to get information out to their citizens. Our country established long ago that the public airwaves of television and radio were to be used for public service in the event of natural disasters or emergencies. They established that the owners of the companies that use the airwaves have a clear social responsibility to provide a streamlined medium with which to communicate with citizens in the case of an emergency. We see this most frequently when severe weather strikes, but in the case of today's earthquake, it was clear that Japan had a structure in place by which journalists could serve the role of social responsibility by giving instructions, advisories and updates through the media.
Social media does allow us to be much more connected with what is happening in all corners of this disaster. I have a high school and college classmate that had to evacuate her hotel in Hawaii with her husband and 6 month old, and I was interested to hear her updates today. Citizen journalists are also providing photos and updates that will prove helpful, but it will only be helpful if that information is funneled through fewer sources. In an emergency like this, media consumers will look to media they trust, and they will expect them to fulfill, above all else, the social responsibility role.
Jeff, I think you make good points about how citizens have taken a more active role in journalism and how it can be very helpful in terms of national security and even scientific documentation (i.e. storm chasers). I thought about how different things are now than even a few years ago. Something Kent does that we never had when I was in undergrad is a campus alert service that sends out thousands of alerts on cell phones and through email to notify students of possible danger or need for vigilance. It's sad that tsunamis and school shootings are what it takes to appreciate these new developments in mass communication, but they are pretty amazing.
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