Only one click away

While reading coverage of the Minneapolis bridge collapse this morning, I was reminded how, on the Internet, all the world's media resources are just one click away, which is a boon for consumers but creates a difficult environment for producers, who now have to compete with everything at once.

Quite a few comments on the New York Times website were from Minnesotans. "It has been surreal to view images of a place one block away from where I live," wrote one. "My house is about seven blocks from the bridge that collapsed," reported another. "The bridge literally collapsed about two blocks from my apartment. I had gone over the bridge just an hour before it collapsed," wrote a third. Several people posted links to resources on startribune.com.

I drove across that bridge just about every work day for nearly 14 years. There were questions raised about its structural integrity in the early 1990s. I can remember an inspection-and-repair unit that hung off the side of the bridge for months. The bridge is just downstream from a dam that kicks up mist (creating a chronic ice problem in the winter), and like all reinforced concrete structures in Minnesota, it's had problems with road salt that seeps into the concrete and attacks the rebar.

Comments

Steve, as a veteran observer of Minnesota's online environment, you wouldn't be surprised to know that citizen journalists played a large role in the coverage of the disaster.

I've written a comprehensive account of the role citizen journalism and media played in the coverage of the Minneapolis bridge collapse. You can read it here: Minneapolis Bridge Collapse & Citizen Journalism.