Online community comes to the fore during fires

By: GARY WARTH - Staff Writer | Monday, October 29, 2007 12:36 PM PDT ∞

In the ever-evolving world of Internet journalism, the cyber-equivalent of a town square emerged this week among readers of the North County Times and The Californian.

As people sought updated information on local wildfires, they turned to the paper's Web site, www.nctimes.com, for breaking news. But rather than relying just on what reporters wrote, many took the reins and began sharing information with one another in a Web section that allowed readers to comment on stories.

North County Times readers have been able to post comments about stories since October 2005. The forum hasn't always brought out the best in people, and the section is often contentious as readers bicker about politics, immigration and other divisive issues.

This week, however, discord took a back seat to civility and cooperation.

Readers asked one another for information about their towns or even their specific streets, and other readers directed them to maps or shared whatever they knew.

But it wasn't just a change in tone. The volume of the paper's Web site viewers dramatically increased this week.

On Sunday, when the fire started east of Ramona, the site recorded 175,235 visitors.

On Monday, the day the fire had spread to Escondido, Rancho Bernardo and other areas, views shot up to 878,351.

The increase continued the next day when 1,054,354 views were recorded.

The numbers then began declining, with 667,047 recorded Wednesday and 400,545 on Thursday.

By Friday, there had been 3.2 million views and 19,010 comments since Monday.

One story about a Fallbrook fire that appeared Monday had generated 1,180 comments by Friday. Most stories on the North County Times' Web site don't break 100 comments.

The story itself had no byline and was only 10 paragraphs long, followed by seven updates that reported the latest information on the fire's progress.

The first two comments arrived at 9:52 a.m.

"Hopefully we can get some pictures and better updates from Fallbrook," a reader who identified himself as Jim II wrote.

"Does anyone know how Green Canyon is doing?" wrote reader High Hopes.

Thirty minutes later, High Hopes had an answer from reader MKE: "Green Canyon from Reche to Winterhaven was OK. I think south to Mission is OK. Was at The VFW last night very smoky. No sizable winds at present along Green Canyon."

Some Fallbrook residents were understandably frustrated at the lack of information they were getting about their town. Many began sending updates unsolicited.

"My husband is on Yucca Road at our home and monitoring the neighborhood," reader Pam wrote. "He noticed that 3253 Yucca Terrace has just started to catch fire."

A reader named Linda wrote that she could not watch local news because she was in another country, but owned a home in Fallbrook and was relying on the blog for information.

Reader Dan wrote at 10:25 a.m.: "We are in Argentina monitoring the news as best we can. We live off Green Canyon, but are having a very hard time finding any details from the news on the Fallbrook fire. I appreciate any updates here that will keep us posted."

Crisis situation

No matter how people may behave in normal times, we tend to band together in times of crises. The online world appears to be no exception.

Andy Carvin, a Washington, D.C., resident who runs several online communities and has been a National Public Radio online strategy coordinator, said it is just human nature.

"It seems quite common, when one of these disasters strikes, that the usual sniping that happens on online communities comes to a crashing halt," he said. "There will be some people who want to talk about conspiracy theories, but most will want to help."

Some people will want to give blood, food, money or just offer a shoulder to cry on, he said.

"It does seem like these large ones that impact communities really seem to mobilize people," he said.

Carvin said he has been observing how the online communities react during crisis since the Kobe, Japan, earthquake of 1995. That was the first time he noticed people using e-mails and bulletin boards to relay information.

The Internet also played a major role after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, he said.

"I was in Washington, D.C., and as soon as we evacuated our office downtown I went online and set up a group where people can participate," he said. "We were getting 50 messages an hour for hundreds of hours."

The online communities not only told people what was happening, but helped dispel rumors about other attacks.

"That experience got me personally interested in what role the online community can play," he said.

The online community united several countries seeking help and information after the 2004 tsunami, and in 2005 it bonded people after the terrorist bombings in London and Hurricane Katrina in New Orleans. Carvin himself set up a Web site for hurricane information that year.

Days before the Red Cross had created a Web site for missing persons after Katrina, Carvin said bloggers had established their own database of names of missing people.

Crisis situationKeeping tabs

Carvin said he's been following what's happening in San Diego through friends who use the mobile-phone tool Twitter. Bernie Dodge, a San Diego State University professor in the department of educational technology, also sees Twitter as a valuable new tool during emergencies.

"I was skeptical of Twitter for a long time," he said. "Now, to me, it's indispensable."

Twitter allows people to text 140 characters at one time. Their friends then get alerts on their mobile phones and computers with the messages. Radio station KPBS used the technology to send updates to people who requested them during the fires.

Through Twitter, Dodge learned that two people he knows evacuated their homes, and he is worried about three others because he has not heard from them in a while.

"It's a way of establishing a small sense of presence with each other," he said about Twitter.

Dodge sees Twitter and the communication among North County Times readers as typical of how people use the Internet to relay information quickly.

"The social networks are incredibly humanizing," he said. "They bring out the best in people at times like this."

Another online expert, David Warlick, a consultant for educational technology with his business the Landmark Project in Raleigh, N.C., also said technology has brought people together.

"We've got a rapidly changing information landscape, where people are becoming accustomed to paying more attention to each other than perhaps the traditional and trusted source of information, such as the local newspaper or news TV," he said.

With the Internet such a hands-on experience, where people post their own videos and create their own Web pages and podcasts, Warlick said there may be a sense of ownership of information like at no time before.

"I wonder if people are just developing the habit of wanting to engage in the news with each other in a way they haven't wanted to do before, because of this habit of social networking," he said. "That's a very interesting occurrence. They're acting like a community."

Contact staff writer Gary Warth at (760) 740-5410 or gwarth@nctimes.com.

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