Think about that for a moment. People used Twitter and Facebook to communicate with family and friends. Some took pictures with their cell phones---including video. Then they appeared on YouTube. It was instant news provided by citizen journalists.
What was interesting was that real journalists were reporting what citizen journalists were reporting, whether it was factual or not. In the 24/7 news cycle, it's become report first, fact-check second.
It's one thing to let your family know you are alive; it's another thing to have the CNN's of the world counting on someone in a devastated village becoming the journalist fact-checker on the scene not knowing whether they've checked their facts at all.
