Citizen journalists take spotlight covering extreme weather, Moore tornado

By Bridgit Bowden

This YouTube video of the May 20 Moore, Okla.,

tornado was captured from a car.  

From the Joplin, Mo., tornado to the Occupy movement to the Boston bombings, we've all learned how powerful citizen journalism can be.  Social media and smartphones have made it easy for people outside of the news business to share information, pictures and video on a wide scale.  Citizen journalists often get news out before professional news organizations can.

Extreme weather is one of citizen journalism's opportunities to shine.  Last week's tornado in Moore, Okla., is a perfect example.  According to the New York Times, when rescuers were searching through rubble for trapped people at the destroyed Plaza Towers Elementary School, they "begged everyone to be quiet — helicopters, trucks, ambulances — so they could hear even the faintest cry." Many of the first images and video we saw were pulled from social media.

Joplin Reporting, 140 Characters at a Time

By Andrew Gibson

Journalism isn’t dying. It’s just changing.

Take the Joplin tornado. Brian Stelter, a media reporter for The New York Times, says some of his “best reporting was on Twitter.” If you read the archive of his firsthand tweets about the tornado, it’s easy to see what he means.

Stelter was originally headed to Chicago to cover Oprah Winfrey’s last show. But he decided on a whim to extend his journey and travel to Joplin to interview survivors for the Times. Stelter soon realized he didn’t even have a pen. That’s when Twitter came in handy.