First On The Crane Collapse Scene … Well, Almost
Scott Conroy is a producer at CBSNews.com.
As I was getting ready to leave my apartment on 88th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan this morning, I heard the helicopter circling above. I didn't think much of it until I turned on the news and saw that a crane had collapsed three blocks away.
I grabbed the small digital video camera that I had used when I was an off-air reporter covering a presidential campaign and dashed off to the scene. I thought I'd be able to get some of the first on-the-ground video of the aftermath, but in this era of citizen journalism, I was already way behind. There were already dozens of journalists—mostly the kind who don't receive paychecks for their work—wielding home movie cameras, tape recorders and cell phones. Being first on the scene of breaking news seems almost impossible now, unless, of course you are the news.
One local resident handed me a videotape he had shot from his nearby window less than five minutes after the collapse. Even though the tape was filled with home video of a family vacation, he was willing to give it up to a stranger in the hopes that CBS News might use the few moments of video he shot. In the YouTube era, it seems that almost everyone wants to help document our times.
(AP Photo/Mary Altaffer)
As I was getting ready to leave my apartment on 88th Street and First Avenue in Manhattan this morning, I heard the helicopter circling above. I didn't think much of it until I turned on the news and saw that a crane had collapsed three blocks away.
I grabbed the small digital video camera that I had used when I was an off-air reporter covering a presidential campaign and dashed off to the scene. I thought I'd be able to get some of the first on-the-ground video of the aftermath, but in this era of citizen journalism, I was already way behind. There were already dozens of journalists—mostly the kind who don't receive paychecks for their work—wielding home movie cameras, tape recorders and cell phones. Being first on the scene of breaking news seems almost impossible now, unless, of course you are the news.
One local resident handed me a videotape he had shot from his nearby window less than five minutes after the collapse. Even though the tape was filled with home video of a family vacation, he was willing to give it up to a stranger in the hopes that CBS News might use the few moments of video he shot. In the YouTube era, it seems that almost everyone wants to help document our times.
