• by September 9, 2005

News sites have pulled out all the stops in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina--as well they should. They have a chance to show the full gamut of what they're capable of offering--video clips, interviews, slide shows, blogs, podcasts, you name it.

Online venues including MSNBC.com, CNN.com, AOL News, ABCNews.com, and Yahoo! News have bulked up--becoming multimedia clearinghouses not only for news, video, satellite photos, maps, and community, but resources on how to help victims and locate missing friends and family members. It's staggering how much content there is to plow through.

As one friend who's also an editor at the Associated Press said: "It's all Katrina, all the time." True enough. And now, the editors are getting some assistance from citizen journalists who are blogging like crazy and sharing their stories, photos, and ideas with all of us. These folks are like the new tornado chasers--the people who go out in all sorts of rough weather and shoot video. It's evolved to words now.

Take the case of AOL News, which has expanded its news channel to include a participatory element including real-time dialogue. A new feature on AOL News dubbed "The Feed" enables citizen journos to be news editors. At http://news.aol.com/ AOL launched a "Daily Pulse Blog," a "Gas Price Blog," and a "Hurricane Relief Blog." Readers can participate and comment on various news stories and issues related to the hurricane and post photos.

"Online news on AOL is becoming the people's platform offering real-time dialogue," Lewis D'Vorkin, vice president and editor in chief of AOL News & Sports, commented in a release.

Citizen journos are also helping shape the coverage, packaging, and play on big news stories like the hurricane and its aftermath, the London bombings, and other global events. We'd love to stop and take the time to review these developments, because they're awesome and awe-inspiring when you get right down to it. We also love the "Safe Lists" that are popping up on news sites and disaster relief sites. Where else but the Web could you do something like that? Or, by the same token, the Web can be used to alert people about those who have gone missing.

We like this work ...