Barn fire coverage shows breaking news evolution

Credit: Christofer Machniak/Hartland Patch • Hartland Area Firefighter Jim Brake scrapes the charred ground as Fire Marshal Mike Bernardin takes pictures Saturday in the area where the animal barn once stood until a fire Friday night at Spicer Orchards Farm Market and Cider Mill, 10411 Clyde Road, in Hartland Township, Mich. The building that contains the farm market, winery and bakery stands in the background.

HARTLAND TOWNSHIP, Mich. — Because of how the semester evolved, we didn't do a breaking news assignment as planned, but I still want to provide some insight into how this is changing the nature of journalism.

The example I'm going to use is from Hartland Patch, where on Friday night I began to report about a fire at a well-known farm and cider mill — Spicer Orchards (A photo from my follow-up story is above). What's really important to note is the first news of the fire wasn't even published by me on my site — it came from a user named Mary who broke the story in our activity stream (See below). After I saw that, I immediately checked to see if other media had anything and I found that the countywide newspaper, the Livingston County Daily Press & Argus already had a brief story and pictures. So, I engaged the audience by responding with what I knew at that point, correcting her report that it was a "large" barn and to explain that we now we're working on the story (also below).

I also linked to the Press & Argus story on Hartland Patch's Facebook page. In this new world of journalism while I still see myself competing with the paper for stories, my philosophy is to also link to their coverage whenever it's useful to my audience, especially on stories that are breaking or that I know Hartland Patch won't be doing. This could be called the Kriss Kringle strategy — in the holiday classic “Miracle on 34th Street” where Santa earns the trust of shoppers by sending Macy customers to rival Gimbel's because it makes sense and is the right thing to do. This is basically the same except I'm trying to build credibility with users as well as make Hartland Patch the place to go for hyperlocal news.

But, the truth is I was totally beat on the story. By the time I got there, the fire trucks were leaving. Still an important thing to remember in journalism is no matter how good you are, at some point, you are going to get scooped. The key thing— and this hasn't changed — is how you respond. There are always new angles to a story, especially in breaking news. So, I spent time at the fire station hoping to have more specifics that ultimately included: the numbers of farm animals that died and how workers and the owners of the farm and firefighters had to rustle up the goats who were hiding in a fenced-in pasture. I still needed pictures, though, and ended up using shots taken by the deputy fire chief on his Blackberry. While they still weren't as good as the Press & Argus, they provided me a great entry point to the site. For that story, click here.

Credit: Deputy Chief Michael L. Eckert of the Hartland Area Fire Department • Smoke billows from a barn that burned down Friday at Spicer Orchards Farm Market and Cider Mill.

The next day, I arrived on scene to take photos of the fire investigation of what remained. I also interviewed one of the owners who vowed they would rebuild. Because the Daily Press & Argus doesn't publish on Saturday, I was first with many of those details in the follow-up. (The paper does have a strong website, but it doesn't always post immediately). In addition, I relied on the web to stretch my reach by adding comments made on Hartland Today, a Hartland-focused Facebook page. And, I also hardly used Twitter in this instance, although I did use it to alert our audience about a late-breaking girls basketball overtime win in Fenton that first night.

And noting that late basketball story — which was written by our own Joshua Henschke, BTW — brings another point to remember: While this story was developing over the weekend I also was editing several other breaking stories on the site. As a smaller operation, while I do have freelance reporters helping me out, there's still a lot of juggling that is required to ensure the stories arrive in a timely fashion — which makes user-generated reporting not only smart philosophically but practical, too.

Also, critical in all of this remains sound journalistic practices of verification. For example, as I noted earlier while Mary did give us a tip, I responded with more accurate information. In addition, I would not have used without permission or if I was suspicious of its validity. At the end of the day, this information is just like another other source that needs to be checked before it can reasonably be used.

This fire is just one example of covering breaking news and it will be different every time because every situation is different. But what's important is to understand and use the new technological tools to the advantage of your audience.