Tuesday, June 16, 2009

How My 6-Year-Old Became a Citizen Journalist | PBS

from MediaShift Idea Lab .
How My 6-Year-Old Became a Citizen Journalist
But it wasn't until a wave of tornadoes went through my hometown of Denver this week that I realized just how far the revolution has come.

A confluence of inexpensive, accessible consumer technology, and microblogging sites like Twitter and Facebook, has lowered the barriers of entry so far to make me think we're witnessing the birth of a completely new -- and arguably better -- breaking news system that involves everyone.

Just look at the experience of Lauren, my 6-year-old daughter, with her $68 Fisher-Price digital camera. On Tuesday, it vaulted us both into the local media spotlight within minutes after she captured footage of a funnel cloud forming over our house.

I uploaded everything to Flickr and Vimeo and posted links in Twitter. Minutes later, @CBS4Denver, the local CBS News affiliate, was broadcasting the footage on the air and interviewing me live over the phone.

That night, CBS came to our house to do a segment about my daughter and how she shot the photo on her Fisher-Price camera. Here's that segment, followed by my video footage.
The next step would be to do a clickable print story in the newspaper.

3 comments:

  1. Ahh wow that's brilliant and I go agree that sites like facebook and twitter has changed things a lot!

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  2. I can't find the link to the segment you did.

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  3. Its there, the link was working for me Infusion!

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