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Storm of 'Citizen Journalism'; Cell-Phone Cameras, Digital Camcorders Added New Dimension to Coverage of October Surprise

Posted on: Wednesday, 8 November 2006, 09:00 CST

By Stephen T. Watson

The power is restored, the snow has melted, and most of the roads are cleared of broken tree limbs, but the freak October snowstorm lives online.

YouTube.com, the wildly popular video-sharing Web site, boasts more than 100 storm-related videos shot by area residents on their cell-phone cameras and digital camcorders. And the photo-sharing site Flickr.com has more than 800 images of the storm.

The amateur videos and photos capture everything from devastating tree damage in Buffalo to a chilly dip in a backyard swimming pool and the hectic scene at an area Wegmans.

It's part of a growing trend toward "citizen journalism," fueled by the widespread availability of digital cameras and high-speed Internet access.

"We've all become paparazzi to a certain extent," said Alex Halavais, an assistant professor of communications at Quinnipiac University who once worked at the University at Buffalo.

Whether it's a politician's gaffe or a terrorist attack, amateur photos and videos are often the first, reliable images transmitted from a big news event.

And this is changing how we record history, experts said.

"You're getting hours and hours of documentation of every major event like that [storm] now," said James G. Milles, director of the UB Law Library.

Even in the recent past, a significant natural disaster has generated video footage and photos almost entirely produced by amateur journalists.

"Think about the Blizzard of '77. Most people had film cameras, for crying out loud. Nobody even knew what the Internet was. The technology today just allows us to communicate so much better," said Marc J. Odien of the Western New York Media Network, an online source for news. He posted the Wegmans YouTube clip.

The subway bombing in London in July 2005 was likely the first major news story to be widely covered firsthand, in almost real time, by the people caught up in the event.

Those subway riders sent thousands of images taken from their cell phones to news organizations throughout London, noted Kevin Lim, a UB graduate student who writes about emerging technology on a Web log, theory.isthereason.com.

"Some consider this a major tipping point in the world of journalism," Lim wrote in an e-mail to The Buffalo News. Now, the Web sites of CNN and the BBC encourage users to submit their own news videos and photos.

Further, file-sharing Internet sites such as YouTube and Flickr make it remarkably easy for users to upload videos and photos onto the Web for friends and strangers alike to see.

This technological trend was on display after the freak October snowstorm, which cut off power to 390,000 customers as it battered the region.

While many residents grabbed for their flashlights and chain saws, others ventured out with their cell phones and digital cameras instead.

A search through YouTube of videos tagged with some combination of "Buffalo,""October,""snow" and "storm" found 113 such videos on the site as of Thursday. A similar search on Flickr found 894 photos.

"When Jill or John Buffalo shoots something that's an incredible picture or video, it really personalizes it in a way that's different than what you see on TV or read in the paper," said Christopher M. Byrd, who writes the In da Buff blog and posts videos on YouTube.

Some storm videos are grainy, bouncy and dimly lighted. But the poor production values are offset by poignant scenes of devastation and touches of humor.

In a 40-second video posted by a YouTube user named "LonBeMe," a swimsuit-clad area resident is shown jumping into his uncovered backyard pool for a "Snow Storm Swim."

And "Buffalo Snowstorm Yorkie," by Dana Hensley, captures her husband, Keith, romping with their Yorshire terrier, Mercy, in the deep snow of their Williamsville yard.

Perhaps the most impressive YouTube storm video is the short film "Buffalo Snow Storm Red Cross," produced by Jason Longo, an American Red Cross volunteer, with help from fellow volunteer Eileen Henion.

They were working the overnight shift Oct. 21 at the emergency shelter at Hoover Elementary School in the Town of Tonawanda when they got inspired to make a movie.

Using clay to make a house, Legos to build a Red Cross truck, cotton balls for snow and branches for trees, they faithfully re- enacted the storm and the Red Cross response in a 59-second video.

Longo filmed the movie with his cell-phone camera and later edited the footage on his laptop.

"We were overly creative and overly tired and overcaffeinated," said Longo, an emergency medical technician in the Rochester area.

Most of the videos are in documentary form, however.

Kevin Kauffman, a 15-year-old sophomore at Williamsville South High School, posted two storm-related videos on the site.

One, "The October Surprise," is set to the tune "Winter's Love" by Animal Collective.

"I pretty much just walked around and filmed everything I saw. I didn't know what I was going to use," Kevin said.

Observers said this growing reliance on firsthand, multimedia accounts of news events is changing journalism.

"User-based journalism. It's pretty exciting if you think about it. Anyone with a digital camera, anyone with video, can now report news and events with a simple flip of the switch," Dan Klosterman, a University at Buffalo graduate, wrote about the storm coverage on his skema designs blog.

e-mail: swatson@buffnews.com

Source: Buffalo News

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