ABSTRACT
Statistician turned writer Nate Silver took his FiveThirtyEight blog, focused on baseball and election stats and predictions, first to the New York Times then, in 2013, to ESPN. Four years earlier, the web was younger and very few people caught up in the 9/11 attacks blogged about their experiences. Most accounts came via the traditional media - interviews with journalists, interpretations by commentators. In 2005, people caught up in or witnessing the London bombings also called family and friends, but this time took another step - they took photos and videos as eyewitnesses and sent them to the media, or uploaded them to communal areas such as Moblog. That people have smartphones and can film what is happening around them is not enough. The web is packed with images of beatings and bombings and abuse. Learning how to verify sources and potential material for stories has always been a key journalistic skill.
