Citizen Journalism

I've been wanting to blog about this for a few weeks now, but I haven't had the chance to talk about it. A few weeks ago my neighbors house burned down. The first fire started on September 11, which was rather ironic. It started from a straightening iron in the master bathroom. Firefighters managed to put the fire out before it did too much damage. The next day I had just got home from work, and my mom yelled to tell me that the neighbors house was on fire again. I grabbed my video camera and managed to capture footage of the entire fire. Unfortunately it burned down the entire home. I noticed that the news crews didn't show up until after the fire was put out. I called the Fox 13 and asked if they would be interested in footage of the fire. I submitted a small clip of footage that I had taken. Later that evening I noticed that they had used my footage on the news. My name was in a little box up in the corner of the video. It was a really cool experience to have something I had done be on the news. It is most unfortunate for my neighbors. Most of the neighbors had a fundraiser to get supplies and clothing for them. It's great to see members of the community reaching out to each other. Thankfully no one was hurt from the fire. The next week I had firefighters showing up at my door wanting a copy of the footage. They want to use it as part of a training video. That was pretty exciting to have happen as well.