News-Record.com

Because of both the nature and the timing of the London bombings yesterday, Tim Porter writes, daily newspapers were pretty much useless:

Stories, photos, audio and video reporting on the horrific bombings in London fill the airwaves, top the web sites of news organizations and occupy the attention of the blogosphere. The front page of the Times is dominated by a photo showing a throng of Londoners cheering for the city's successful Olympic bid. How sadly outdated it is today. ...

The first-day story no longer belongs to newspapers - and hasn't for a long time. It isn't even the property of professional journalists any longer.

Porter's post is accompanied by a photo, taken by a London Underground passenger with a cell phone, of another rider with a cloth over his face. He continues:

It was taken by Adam Stacey, a passenger on the "Northern line, just past Kings Cross" some time after the bombing on that train and uploaded to a moblog (then picked up by the BBC.) Terrorism made Stacey a victim; technology made him a reporter. ...

The participatory nature of the news coverage of the London bombings - from photos on the BBC to Flickr, from blogger Norm Geras and to David Carr in London (posting in Samizdata) - erases the line between those affected by the news and those who cover the news.

In a world of digital empowerment and reflexive communication, we are all reporters.

But is there still a role for newspapers to play? Emphatically, Porter says, but they should be providing "everything but the news":

I want the type of reporting that professionals can still do better than citizens, but also pointers to the best of the citizen work:

Context: The history of terrorism in London and on the European continent.

Update: What happened to the Madrid subway bombing suspects?

Local: What are the safety measures on the New York subway system? On BART in the Bay Area? How have they changed since the Madrid bombing? What money is involved? (This is local relative to the daily papers Porter reads; he lists them elsewhere in the post -- Lex)

Geography: A large, data-rich info-graphic of what happened (which is so hard to read online).

People like me: London is filled with American tourists. Tell me their stories.

Debate: An op-ed page devoted to liberty vs. security. (I think that's a false dichotomy, a trip-and-fall into the common journalistic trap of presuming two, and only two, distinct "sides" to a story. But, yes, some sort of enlightened opinion writing from a variety of viewpoints -- Lex)

Voices: The words and images of those who were there.

So: How'd we do?