Traditional tales

Rachel Theilheimer teaches early childhood education at Borough of Manhattan Community College in New York City. Josh R. Allen is a fifth-grader at Dows Lane Elementary School in Irvington, NY, where Rena I. R. Allen is in first grade.     

Cast Aside

This paper examines the role of user-generated content in a traditional news organization during the coverage of the Boston marathon bombings. In-depth interviews were conducted with the journalists who made up the interactive team at the Boston Globe. The interactive team was in charge of the live blog during the week-long coverage of the marathon bombings. The study identifies the perceptions journalists hold of user-generated content during crisis reporting and the impact user-generated content had during the tense coverage. The findings suggest that user-generated content has a good way to go before being considered an integral part of breaking news content.