Name: Hoang Khanh Ly NGUYEN
Course: Media and Communication
Class: Digital Environment (Seminar 2)
Candidate number: 117318
Tutor: David Burry
Date: 16th October, 2013
Words: 459

On April 15th, 2013, during the Boston Marathon, there were two bombs exploding near the finish line on Boylston Street, Boston, Massachusetts in the US. This became unforgettable event in American people’s mind. The consequences of this bombing caused three deceased persons and one police officer died from gunshot wounds including over 170 people injured. This essay will analyse three reports from three different news organisations and a non-news digital service which are The Guardian, CNN and Twitter. These article covered different sides of the event.
According to Benkler (2006, p.60), participatory journalism is kind of network where professionals or amateurs, journalist or citizens can share same resources. That causes mainstream news decentralized and non-proprietary. For example, in Boston marathon’s explosion, the three reports are focused on the investigation of reasons and who was perpetrator including number of people died and injured. As well as Javis (2006) defines participatory news, citizens media as networked journalism because now professionals and citizens has a complicated relationship in working together to approach a real story or event which they aim to. Compared between the Guardian article and CNN report, both of them gave the same progress of Boston bombing from the first blast which killed an 8-year-old boy and another two people. Besides the updated news of that serious case, audiences require how accurate these reports convey. CNN’s and The Guardian’s reports are used material provided from the local Boston police because they keep the most exact and credible evidences along with FBI’s investigation which make the information more reliable as well as these reports written by professional journalists and local reporters in Boston. Simultaneously, Twitter uploads a new report how The Boston Globe – the biggest local newspaper using Twitter to update the case and emergency situation. From that the number of followers of The Boston Globe on Twitter increased sharply in those days, the reason of the raise showed that the readers or audience want to get newest information without having a newspaper. On the other hand, Boston police looked for help from social networkers to call people who are witnesses recording or keeping any pictures, videos of the suspect while bombing. Not only around the information of the case, but these reports also allow people attending to leave comments and opinions. Only CNN mentioned about the speech of The United State President– Barack Obama to vow for blast victims, they want to convey that all of Americans prays for them and be beside to help in difficult time.
In conclusion, CNN and The Guardian are both of ‘digital native’ news organisations so that they enhance the accuracy of reports, but cannot underestimate the promptitude of non-news digital services such as Twitter where is the freedom of speech of citizen journalist.

References:
Benkler, Yochai (2006) The Wealth of Networks, New Haven, CT : Yale University Press. https://blog.twitter.com/2013/the-boston-bombing-how-journalists-used-twitter-to-tell-the-story http://edition.cnn.com/2013/04/15/us/boston-marathon-explosions/index.html http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/apr/17/boston-bombings-investigation-cctv (Accessed 12th Oct, 2013)