October 25, 2007

citizen journalists covering the wildfires in California

33440839.jpg From dramatic cell phone camera images of flames as they choked off neighborhood escape routes to chilling online narratives of evacuation, citizen journalists covering the wildfires in California this week gave new meaning to the concept of reporting a natural disaster from the ground up. The Baltimore Sun reports.

"I'm not knocking what we do in the mainstream media, but citizens are bringing the highly personal, close-up nature of these fires home to viewers in a way that traditional reporting just doesn't do," said Nancy Lane, senior vice president/editorial at CNN.