The other day during my New Media & PR class over at BU, we were discussing the importance of blogging in times of crises. As temperamental, questionable, controversial and uncontrollable as the blogosphere can be, especially when it comes to PR, it has its moments. For corporations, blogging can be the fastest way to buy time and show that your company is listening. And for people, blogging in times of crisis can give the fastest, most updated information to the ones who need it the most.
I’ve been a little depressed lately. The job hunting is going nowhere, my cash is drying up, and I lost exactly half of my socks in the dryer last night. More relevant here, my blog also tends to pick out ethical fallacies in people and corporations of today’s world. Yesterday’s class was a little renewal of my faith in people, even in hard times. Hopefully it can do the same for you, my similarly confused and worried friends.
I’ve lived in several places now, but only San Diego is the one I call home. Last year while I was away at school studying for midterms, my home began to burn.
All I got from mom and dad were scattered calls at 4 a.m., the only time of day the cell phone towers weren’t dropping calls or preventing service altogether. I gathered through scattered messages when my neighborhood was evacuated via the reverse-911 system. I picked up broken stories about my neighbors watching their homes catching fire as they jumped into their swimming pools for safety, and others suffocating in their garages which they couldn’t open in the smoky darkness. The pictures in the newspaper were as orange and eerie as the fires four years previously.
Now the reason this class resurfaced these memories I so wish I’d forget was because of the way new media has changed the way we communicate in all crises, and that as scary and fritzy as I make this world out to be, humans morals in this case did not disappoint.
We were told to keep our cell phones off during peak hours, so this Millenial plugged straight into the internet. A quick google search yielded facebook groups with updated information and blogs with pictures of the damage. As citizens weren’t allowed in evacuated areas, real reporters couldn’t give accurate, updated reports. Citizen journalists, thus, were the ones who crossed the lines illegally and gave the most up-to-date information on the damage.
It was unbelievably reassuring to be updated on a situation that was so far away from me but so close to my heart. People I’d never even met were risking their lives to keep the rest of us in the know. As I studied furiously and held tears back, I surfed several blogs with pictures of the damage and lists of addresses of standing homes. I found out that my friend down the street who took me to the prom was now among the homeless. I even saw a picture posted on a facebook group that was taken from my front lawn and facing the house across the street, where a cop stood watching homes burn.
It was a surreal part of my life, that’s for sure. And it’s pretty amazing that people could be so kind, even in this day and age, and even after all my cynical blogging. I hope these strangers realize just how much they helped me. Here’s to you.
Special thanks to the operators of this blog.
And here is a link to that godawful song, if you didn’t already recognize it.
Best,
Laura Wolf
