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Mar
6
8 shot in Gary. Social media breaks story.
Filed Under crime, Facebook, Gary Indiana, Gary Police, social networking, Twitter
Northwest Indiana social media reports about a shooting at a Gary skating rink on Friday beat the traditional news media to the story.
Local Twitter user Gioperation asks the local newspaper about reports that were circulating on Facebook and Twitter that eight children were shot at a Gary, Indiana skating rink about 10 a.m. Saturday morning:
@nwi any truth to the 8 kids shot last night at the Gary skating rink- couldn’t find it in your newspaper online.
A search of the local newspapers in Northwest Indiana and Chicago Breaking News on Saturday morning showed no reports of the Friday evening shooting.
Writes Gioperation about not finding the news of the skating rink shooting this morning:
@Chris_Hedges do you know why there is not reports of the shooting last night at the skate rink in Gary last night- buzzing on FB!
Gioperation in a response to one of my questions said that he had first heard of the Gary skating rink shootings via Facebook:
@Chris_Hedges Here is the one that started it all – http://www.facebook.com/profile.php?v=feed&story_fbid=361015320488&id=1207179871
About 5 p.m. this evening, the Northwest Indiana Times reports the Gary, Indiana skating rink shooting incident via the Associated Press.
Authorities say eight teenage boys were shot while leaving a Gary skating rink where they were attending a concert.
The AP report about the 8 teens shot at the skating rink originated at the Post-Tribune sometime today:
Gary Police Cpl. Gabrielle King said Saturday “all chaos broke loose” when a fight broke out during the event and security advised attendees to leave Skate World, 4415 W. 5th Ave. in the Commons shopping center.
King said no arrests have been made. …
Police identified the wounded as: Shaquille Hughes, 15, shot in right side; Marcus Ratliff,14, shot in right wrist; Justin Bodley, 16, shot in the leg; Junan Washington, 18, shot in left ankle; DaVonte Biddings, 16, shot once in back; Marquel Croock, 16, shot in stomach; Kesean Philon, 14, shot in left leg; Stephan Danzy, 17, shot in left leg.
Comments
9 Responses to “8 shot in Gary. Social media breaks story.”
8 shot in Gary. Social media breaks story. | Christopher Hedges…
Social media users break the story of 8 teens shot at a Gary, Indiana skating rink Friday evening. The local media reports the story later on Saturday. Local Twitter user Gioperation spots the story on Facebook and text messages and asks local media vi…
While Social Media broke it was reported incorrectly that children had died…as a journalist our first job is to report the facts…not hearsay not rumors…so while you may honor Mr. Hodge…he didn’t get his facts straight before he went global and that is the wrong way to report something of this magnitude!! Emotionalism has no place in journalism. I give his reporting a thumbs down!
Lisa, I don’t know who you are- but I apologize for the typo- I’m not as good as our local news agencies… I don’t have a million people editing.
regardless of the situation-
it still took OVER 12 hours for you guys to get the story PERIOD- wow!!!
News at its finest, RIGHT!
and as a newspaper in whole- there could have been a Breaking News update- saying Reports that 8 kids shot at Skating Rink- details to follow- at least the parents, grandparents, friends and family from all over the world- could have known that read the local papers… it wouldn’t have taken rocket science and a homemade scanner- which I don’t have- just a simple blackberry- that receives calls… you guys have them right- ah yeah there is also an scanner application for it too, that works pretty good.
I guess it’s good that I have friends in low places- you know the ones- that keep their eyes and ears to the pulse of the region.
in the end, I guess it is good to be me.
Lisa, I accept your apology… hey if you want more juicy info- call me 219-512-9910, I got a story that you might want to do. Tons of them.
Ryan
“gioperation”
http://blackfolkhotspots.com
Hi Lisa,
Thanks for your input. I didn’t see that Gioperation aka Ryan Hodge had reported people had died on Twitter. I wasn’t able to access the Facebook items because they were only available to friends of the person posting them.
I do also see the need to verify the story and to make sure that the facts are correct, but I can also see the point that some people thought there was a lack of timely reporting — especially when there were such large number of people injured at the skating rink.
There was no information for many hours regarding the shooting in Gary. The first Tweet I saw from Mr. Hodge was when he was asking the Times’ Twitter account if they knew anything about the story because he had been seeing many items on social media networks about the event.
When the shooting in Portage happened, there was reporting about the incident fairly quickly. While all facts weren’t known right away, there were updates online (I remember getting a news alert email from the Times and seeing Twitter updates).
When I first heard about the Gary shootings and didn’t see anything online locally or in the Chicago media, I thought it was a bad rumor. Events of such magnitude routinely appear in the media online relatively quickly, even if they are to advise that an incident has been reported and that more information is coming.
I thought that the shooting might be some sort of hoax — if it isn’t in the paper or on their online verson, it might not have happened — that’s why I didn’t write about it here until I saw that the media was covering the news.
I applaud the work the media does day in and day out. I know that it’s a tough gig — especially in these days when it seems nobody wants to pay a reporter a decent salary because people don’t seem to want to pay for newspapers anymore. (I pay for the paper version of the Post-Tribune because I want it to stick around and have purchased ad space in the past).
I did raise in subsequent Twitter posts that the delay might have been because of factors such as the timing of the shooting — it happened on a Friday night after the deadline for the print version of the paper and maybe getting in touch with P.D. officials could have been tough.
But, it might have helped with quelling rumors if there had been some news item posted earlier — even if just to say that more information was to come.
[...] post about the social media networks buzzing over the shooting of 8 teens at a Gary skating rink raised points about social media reporting that need to be [...]
Hi Lisa,
I see the post Ryan Hodge made about his understanding that there were deaths was made on his Facebook page. I read the post and it isn’t clear that there were deaths, but that it was Mr. Hodge’s thought that there were deaths.
It’s a lesson of the power of social media. We must use it carefully. I invite you to join in on my discussion above regarding “Should social media have waited.” The link is in the comment above.
Who is this Lisa,
First off I had my facts correct- I made a typo- although as big as it seems- it was very small in comparison to the oversight of the local news media and not getting any info out to the masses- I know, that if I received at least 15 calls- then I know the newspapers, reporters and news outlets received even more… and I am just a little part-time blogger.
Another thing is who are you, and why is my named used in your post- so obvious this is some type of personal attack, because at no point did Chris use my last name in his posting.
Furthermore, I sent a request to the all the #NWI sources that I had in the news outlets to confirm what the streets were telling me. That was before I posted anything. Leave me your contact info and I will call you 1st next time, before posting… or you can contact me @ 219-512-9910.
And lastly, just like what Chris said- that still doesn’t take away from the news outlets breaking the story online, even if it was a blurb, saying details coming…
Thanks for trying to discredit me- in reality- we would have never got to this if, when I woke up, I could have looked at the online versions of the post trib and the times- I get all type of alerts of traffic accidents from nwi.com on my BB, and I still haven’t received any type of alert from them– what gives- is what they are trying to tell us is this isn’t news-alert-worthy.
There is nothing wrong with citizens reporting what they see and hear, this is the lifeblood of citizen journalism. Old media will have to be patient as citizens learn the “rules” for free speech.
@dalton briefs there is nothing wrong unless your child or children was in attendance at that event…social media is a powerful tool and items should be reported responsibly. Not haphazzardly…who cares about old media…