November 23, 2004, 8.16am • 23 comments » • 2,454 Views

Sites’ site reaches new heights

When freelance reporter and weblogger last week captured video of a US marine shooting an apparent Iraqi insurgent despite his being alive, the world’s media leapt all over the story. But Sites, letting the story do its stuff out in the news environment, was compelled to keep quiet.

Now he’s posted a lengthy personal account of what he saw in Fallujah and how he came to capture it. And it, in turn, has been picked up by the news media (ie. The New York Times).

Bottom-line: usually blogs feed off stories in the mainstream news media or police their journalists; here, Big Media follows Sites’ blog. Complicated, of course, because Sites is both a Big Media journalist and a blogger, and because it’s a great, big story that left some questions being asked of Sites.

Also, this must now be the prime example of what can happen, on the positive site, when journalists keep personal blogs. Ex CNN reporter Rebecca Mack says thinks there should be more of it:-

By veiling this backstory from public knowledge we (would be) depriving our readers and viewers of an important contextual framework through which to judge the information we’re giving them. The best way to restore the public’s faith in our work is to be more honest and transparent … we’re human, and our reporting is the product of imperfect human minds and emotions. What better way to do this than by allowing journalists to blog?

Update (Nov 24):: I missed it, but Tim Aldrich’s blog didn’t - The Guardian led its front page with a verbatim copy of Site’s all-important blog entry, he says.