Dan Gillmor has published an interesting article at the Center for Citizen Media blog, reflecting on How Media Are Evolving. Gillmor notes that the day is coming when we’ll be watching tragedies like the Virginia Tech killings in real time:

The killings Monday at Virginia Tech brought to the forefront the remarkable evolution in media over the past few years. And as we move into a time in which we will be saturated with data, we need to be clear on some of the implications of democratized media.

The scope of the media shift was clearer again on Monday. Some of the most widely viewed images came from a mobile phone camera aimed at the police response by a student, Jamal Albaughouti. His video made its way to CNN and other media, and was seen by millions.

I didn’t turn on my TV yesterday except in the evening, to watch a national network’s news report. I wanted to see a summary of what a serious journalism organization had to say about what it knew so far.

The changes that are coming in citizen media are clear – but it often seems that our culture’s ability to deal with these changes lags behind the technology.

Are we ready to see these sort of tragic events unfold in real-time?