Patrick Beeson

*UPDATE: CNN has published a story about the now-infamous cellphone video sent in by Virginia Tech student Jamal Albarghouti. (And more on this act of citizen journalism from Lost Remote.)

I found out about yesterday's shootings at Virginia Tech through Twitter (thanks Andrew).

From there I was playing catch-up, bouncing from local Web site to national Web site in an attempt to get up to speed. Radio coverage helped on my way home for lunch, and TV filled me in while I finished my sandwich.

But none of this relieved the shock of an event like this happening in an area I had just moved from only a few weeks ago.

I was working for The Roanoke Times/roanoke.com during last year's manhunt for a shooting suspect at Tech. That was also a major media event given it was the university's first day of classes for the semester.

Our servers were hit hard as the coverage unfolded to CNN and its ilk. At times, you were served nothing but errors.

I'm now removed from the bustle of that newsroom, but I'm still crossing my fingers with hopes their site will load. A quick view of their "most-read stories" page says page views are in the hundreds of thousands (if not millions).

Since access to the local media is spotty, I've taken to watching the competition: CNN, Washingtonpost.com and the social media (Newsvine, Flickr, blogs, etc). Of those, CNN had a huge win with the user-submitted cellphone video. But Newsvine should also be commended largely from the efforts of a user named "Killfile," who posted updates during the previous shooting.

Even if roanoke.com's servers could handle the massive traffic, they unfortunately lack an effective way for the public to submit information or media.

CNN has I-Report, where users can send photos, video and reports to the newsroom. This is how Tech student Jamal Albarghouti shared his brave journalism with the world.

Newsvine has sharing tools built into their business model. Not only can registered users upload already-published stories, but they can also share their own (with an interface better than many newsroom CMS). In fact, Killfile's style of posting is nearly the same as that of roanoke.com.

Newsvine's coverage also has a bonus: Look at how much unfolded in that post's 200-plus comments.

With the functionality featured these two examples, even a mid-sized news outlet like roanoke.com could compete against the washingtonpost.com and nytimes.com. Because as far as in-house content goes, they are doing this already.

Events like this horrible tragedy make a compelling case for citizen journalism. It's up to the media to develop the tools to make it a reality.