Did citizens scoop the video star?

Today, officials reportedly foiled a terrorist plot in Britain's airports. While thankfully no atrocities have yet to occur, it makes me wonder how the press would handle such an event - especially if it was midair over an ocean.

During the September 2001 terrorist attack in Manhattan and the July 2005 bombings in London, the most riveting images to cross the wire and ocean were from cameraphones, some that were released long after the fires had been extinguished. Is it possible that online video can now make those same kinds of waves if an attack were to happen?

Could YouTube become a de facto source for the most accurate news? Yes.

If a 14-year-old girl recorded a plane striking a city, it's doubtful that she would go to the nearest news bureau to turn over the unrivaled footage. But sooner or later, it would creep out...to the web. In this week's New York Press, Editor-in-Chief Adario Strange hit the video trend right on the head:

"Back in the offline world, MTV is celebrating its 25th anniversary and, amazingly, the channel may now be one of the most irrelevant video sources around for its target 12-to-24 demographic."

Did broadband scoop the video star? Only if video stars are confined to a set in your living room. In a time when anonymous girls emote daily via video, it's entirely possible that the most valuable news footage would come from citizen reporters, or what's more, citizen anchors. Of course, we must interpret this information about as cautiously as we do any independent blog, but then again, about as cautiously as we do any news source, too.

Keep an eye out, press, or you might just get scooped by a 14-year-old girl in eyeliner.