Information Spreads Like Wildfire

A couple years ago I chided my good friend, Gil Asakawa, then the director of the Denver Post website, for trying to recruit reporters who not only could write, but would be able to take photos and video. Would anybody with half a brain even consider that?

Today, I’m thinking he was prescient. Let me explain. Sunday we were visiting some friends in west Boulder. Within ten minutes, we watched as a wildfire brought smoke, then an orange glow and finally flames over Settler’s Park.

In another life, I was a newspaper reporter. And though I have no outlet today besides my weblog, I immediately reverted to reporter mode, trying to remember what I was seeing, thinking, feeling and smelling, all the while wishing I had a notebook. But I had the iPhone, and I began taking photos of the smoke and finally of the flames coming over the ridge and jotted a few notes on the Notepad. And I realized that, were I a reporter for the local paper, I could call the city desk, take some photos and dictate a story that could be on the website in just a few minutes. With a computer I could have written the story and sent it right from there. (Here's what I posted. Click on the photo for larger version.)

Another interesting thing was the number of people who descended into the immediate area; within ten minutes there were hundreds of people pouring in, more than the number who were heading east out of the neighborhood. This had something to do with the fact that you could see smoke from practically everywhere in town, but I’m sure it had something to do with the ubiquity of cellphones. People were getting there even before the fire authorities.

Kevin Cawley, another friend who works at NewsGator, was on his bike near Allenspark when he started getting Twitter messages about a Boulder blaze. Yet another way that information travels like, pardon the expression, wildfire. Once, and not that long ago, either, a reporter just needed a notebook. Today, I can’t imagine why any writer would go out in the field without at least a basic digital camera/cellphone, a laptop -- and maybe even a Twitter account.

Comments

[Gil Asakawa]

Ahem. I hate to say "I told you so," Leland, but....

What would have closed the media circle on this story is if the Daily Camera had a mechanism (and they may, actually) to have you or other people on the scene to immediately email; in the photo, or story, or a video, and have it appear on the website right away.

The technology is there, for professionals and amateurs alike, but most media companies still are nervous about allowing the great unwashed masses access to their hallowed ground. After all, they say, "We're trained journalists."

Trained, maybe, but absent from the scene of the fire.

[June Yasol]

Yeah, t'was a good thing you have an iphone to be able to catch a good picture describing your story- nice shot you got there.

In our place in the Philippines, if you don't have a cellphone you're not considered human. And we are the only country who love texting. Sometimes radical people are even using cellphone to spread wildfire news about our government in an attempt to overthrow them. Good thing we always get back to our senses.

Congratulation, Leland! Get back to Professional Reporting..but if blogging is your way, visit my websites, there are ways there you make money with it!

ZyberDon