Last night, and this weekend in general, reminded me why I love communications and journalism. My heart was beating and my fingers were racing as I typed the homepages of cnn.com and searched twitter for Penn State updates.
During the WWII London bombings, Americans were captivated by Edward Murrow's radio broadcasts, "this is London... good night and good luck." After the television phenomenon, Walter Cronkite told the nation on the CBS evening news that he no longer believed the Vietnam war was one that the U.S could win, which prompted President Johnson's quote: "If I've lost Cronkite, I've lost America." Millions tuned their channels to Nixon's congressional hearings an even more stood around their televisions in disbelief as the twin towers turned from sky scrapers to dust on the dark morning of September 11, 2001.
The ongoing war in Iraq marks the first time that people gather around computer screens more often than the television. We email article links to friends, read dozens of online newspapers and most significantly, we never wait until the 11 o'clock news to be informed. Media has evolved into a complex, fascinating and exciting tool that connects us instantaneously with things happening down the block, and half-way around the world.
Last night, at around 10:30, I went to check cnn.com before going to bed. There was no information on anything that had happened, only a blinking banner telling me that President Obama would address the country with breaking news within moments. My fingers seemed to trip on each other as I scurried to find the remote, turn on the TV and find a channel. Upon arriving to NBC, there was a photo of Osama bin Laden and a news anchor telling me that he was dead. I jumped back onto my computer, and refreshed cnn.com so that I could listen and read all at the same time. However, cnn hadn't been able to update their website yet. Instead of going to another news source, I went to social media site, Twitter. There were already thousands of tweets confirming that Osama was, in fact, dead.
From the time I innocently clicked cnn.com and saw the flashing banner until when I learned about the details of how it had happened, about 2 minutes - maybe less - had collapsed.
Pretty amazing.
The rest of the night was the same, I read countless articles, tweets and facebook statuses about Osama. During the President's speech, I was able to know what most of my friends thought about Obama's address through, again, tweets and facebook statuses.
Within minutes of Obama's speech, through twitter and facebook, I was informed that there was a riot of Penn State students downtown. I knew that they were chanting "USA" and setting off fireworks. Even though the riot was only a few blocks away, I knew it in a quicker amount of time online than it would have taken me to walk there.
About 5 minutes into the riot, I was able to see pictures uploaded on facebook and the website of our student newspaper, the Daily Collegian.
At midnight, only an hour and a half after initially hearing the news, I was filled with extensive knowledge about the operation - when it happened, how it happened; I had watched a Presidential address; I had been on every major news organization's website, including Britain's BBC; I had heard about a riot of my fellow students and seen the photos, in fact, I even knew what they were chanting, how the police were reacting and watched videos of people crowd surfing an American flag.
At midnight, only an hour and a half later, I was able to shut my laptop and go to bed. In my quiet, peaceful room, with a roommate who had gone to bed at 10 and knew nothing sleeping only a few feet away from me, I was able to disconnect from the world.
The weekend started with a wedding that stole the attention of billions (the number of royal wedding viewers still blows my mind) and ended with a death that has re-awakened a sense of news-consciousness among my peers.
This media isn't an industry that was designed to stand still, but an industry that seeks to inform with every platform possible, an industry that isn't held in the hands of a few but is accessible and interactive (hello twitter). I am so lucky to witness it all. I am so excited to one day be apart of it.
Here's some photos of the Penn State riot, taken from www.collegian.psu.edu, full coverage can be found here
