On April 27, 2011, the state of Alabama was struck by a massive storm system that produced 219 tornadoes across dozens of states. More than 250 Alabamians died. It was a day when media from all over the state and nation had their eyes set on central Alabama as storms raged in heavily populated cities like Tuscaloosa, Birmingham, Cullman, and Huntsville. It was also a day when the media relied heavily on reports from the public.
Many people remember the afternoon storm complex of April 27 that spawned the massive wedge-shaped tornado that destroyed homes and businesses across Tuscaloosa and Birmingham and left millions of dollars in damage as it trekked northeastward. But few remember the storm system that slammed the state during that day’s early morning hours.
Just before 6:00 that morning, a tornado formed and touched down near the community of Cahaba Heights, Alabama, a suburb of Birmingham (source). As the tornado weaved its way through the dense community of Cahaba Heights, dozens of homes were damaged and numerous trees were toppled. Twenty people were injured. The tornado was later assigned an EF-2 rating with winds of 120 miles per hour.
To the media covering the storm, this was a massive story. A heavily populated community in Alabama's largest city being hit by an early-morning tornado would require the dispatch of reporters, camera crews and satellite trucks. But for many stations, those resources were not readily available. The storm knocked out power and communications services to thousands of Birmingham-area residents as it passed through the area. With fallen trees blocking roadways and taking live power lines with them, it would be extremely difficult for anyone to access the Cahaba Heights community to assess the damage.
At the time, a close friend of mine named Kevin lived in Cahaba Heights. Kevin had just come out of his storm shelter and found the world around him in shambles. With no power and no television service, Kevin had no way of knowing the full scope of what had just happened. So, Kevin decided to venture out to find out firsthand what had happened. Kevin took out his mobile phone, activated the camera, and pressed “record.” As he set out on foot down the road where he lived, Kevin captured images of the devastation around him: homes torn apart, tall trees felled wherever the wind tossed them, people in their yards yelling for help. It was a nightmare scene.
Kevin thought it would be helpful to send the video he took to a local television station that was covering the storm. With my help (he did not have email on his mobile device at the time), we sent his video to the station. Within minutes, Kevin’s unedited, shaky, mobile-phone video was put on the air and replayed dozens of times that morning. Unbeknownst to Kevin, his video was the first footage out of Cahaba Heights after the tornado struck that morning.
With roads blocked and communications crippled, Kevin’s video would be the viewers’ only look into the destruction in Cahaba Heights for hours. But it was not the only contribution that people outside the news community made to the reporting that day. As dozens of tornadoes raged around the state, TV stations turned to viewer-submitted photos, live streams, tweets and Facebook posts to cover what they couldn’t. It was a freelance storm chaser with a streaming video camera who first confirmed the existence of a violent tornado on the ground west of Tuscaloosa. In the days after the storm, people turned to Facebook to galvanize thousands of others nationwide to begin major cleanup and recovery efforts to aid in the process of healing and rebuilding after the storms.
It is unlikely that Kevin and the dozens of others who used their phones, social media accounts and blogs that day would fancy themselves "citizen journalists." But, in an instant and in the midst of one of the worst weather disasters in American history, they became just that. In a way, all of us with the simple tools and the means to share our unique perspective on the world with others have this capability. We are all in a position to report on the little slice of Earth we occupy.
Sometimes we may find ourselves in the role of citizen journalist without even realizing it. Just days after the April 2011 tornado outbreak, another man on the other side of the globe would become forever known for his in-the-moment citizen journalism. Sohaib Athar, an IT consultant living in Abbottabad, Pakistan, inadvertently found himself live-tweeting the raid on Osama bin Laden's compound the night in May when he was killed by U.S. Navy SEALs. Athar had no idea what was happening until after the raid was over. Within days, Athar gained tens of thousands of Twitter followers and received dozens of interview requests from media outlets worldwide (source).
The reality is, it's much easier than most people think to become a citizen journalist. Often, as in the case of Kevin and Sohaib Athar, it simply requires someone to be in the right place at the right time. It also requires a willingness to share one's view on the world with the public and at least a basic understanding of the tools of the trade, including blogs, social media, and mobile devices. Some media outlets encourage people to position themselves to report first-person on big news events through initiatives like CNN's iReport and Fox News Channel's uReport.
There are, of course, obvious concerns about citizen journalism and the impact it has on communication law and ethics. Because anyone can be a citizen journalist, there is no way to ensure that they all adhere to the rules of objectivity, privacy and accuracy. But those concerns are mostly assuaged by the fact that citizen journalism is a vital component of a growing social conversation propelled forward by a free and open Web, and the fact that traditional media (television) still remains far and away the leader as Americans' primary source of news (source).
It is safe to say that citizen journalists will continue to thrive in their niche of reporting the news that traditional media won't, or can't, cover. This new avenue of communication is here to stay, and that's a good thing.
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