Who Needs CNN?

Witnesses of the Mumbai terror attacks didn’t wait for CNN to get information: They captured it themselves, the New York Times reports, the latest example of citizen journalists using technology to put themselves on the frontlines of news. “I felt I had a responsibility to share my view with the outside world,” said one witness from Boston.

Twitter, a short-messaging service, proved especially popular with users because “you get feeds from many different people at the same time,” an analyst noted. Citizen journalists also weren’t hamstrung by the responsibilities of old media: When CNN’s license to broadcast live in India expired Friday, witnesses continued uploading photos on Flickr and transmitting video from their cellphones to TV networks.
(More Mumbai stories.)