Doing Journalism in a Social World

From a journalistic point of view, using FaceBook and MySpace to find friends of victims of the Virginia Tech shootings makes complete sense. In fact, it's good, solid journalistic practice.

Granted, no one likes to talk with friends of victims and ask them their feelings at that moment, but it comes with the job of being a reporter. Some journalists may handle it better than others, and I've heard stories recently of students complaining that they're being overused by the media. And I'm sure they probably are.

But Dan Kennedy is right when he disagrees with FaceBook's objection that the site is being used for this purpose. It's not different than when a local TV crew descends on a neighborhood after a shooting and starts knocking on doors to find friends of a victim. The only difference is that social networking makes this all a little easier.

NPR's Barbara Bradley Hagerty also ran a decent story on the same issue.