People can’t see TV in New Orleans because there is no power to broadcast or receive. But the stations are broadcasting on the internet, just in case someone can see.
People can’t get newspapers in New Orleans because there’s no way to distribute it. But the Times-Picayune put up its entire edition on the internet, at Nola.com, just in case someone can see.
: LATER: See Terry Heaton and Rex Hammock on WKRN’s online and blog efforts during the storm in Nashville. Says Rex:
WKRN isn’t merely using a blogging platform to format news “content” (which I would applaud even if that were all they were doing), but they are using their blogs to help do away with the concept of “on-air-personality” and to replace it with, what?, on-air human beings — The station manager is even jumping onto the weather blog to let us know when one of them has to go home to get some sleep, when one of them gets sick.
The station has spent months inviting Nashville bloggers to the station (and even giving them and their kids air time. They’ve come to wherever bloggers find themselves together. They not only talk-the-talk but walk-the-walk. In short, they’ve earned “street cred” with a community of bloggers who, when we find ourselves in the midst of breaking news, will not only blog it ourselves as citizen journalists, but will gladly volunteer to be citizen stringers to help the station get the news out.
Working with bloggers, aka viewers/users/readers/people, is enlightened self-interest.
