Our MB peers over at the Mumbai Metroblog are covering the terror attacks.

Their citizen journalism efforts were even mentioned in yesterday’s CNN story, “Tweeting the terror: How social media reacted to Mumbai“

The minute news broke of the terrorist attacks on Mumbai, India, social media sites like Twitter were inundated with a huge volume of messages…

With more than 6 million members worldwide, an estimated 80 messages, or “tweets,” were being sent to Twitter.com via SMS every five seconds, providing eyewitness accounts and updates.

Many Twitter users also sent pleas for blood donors to make their way to specific hospitals in Mumbai where doctors were faced with low stocks and rising casualties.

Others sent information about helplines and contact numbers for those who had friends and relatives caught up in the attacks. Tweeters were also mobilized to help with transcribing a list of the dead and injured from hospitals, which were quickly posted online.

As Twitter user “naomieve” wrote: “Mumbai is not a city under attack as much as it is a social media experiment in action.”

Neha Viswanathan, a former regional editor for Southeast Asia and a volunteer at Global Voices, told CNN, “Even before I actually heard of it on the news I saw stuff about this on Twitter.

“People were sending in messages about what they were hearing. There were at least five or six blogs from people who were trapped, or who were very close to what happened.”

One tweet from “Dupree” appeared to be coming from inside one of the hotels: “Mumbai terrorists are asking hotel reception for rooms of American citizens and holding them hostage on one floor.”

A group of Mumbai-based bloggers turned their Metroblog into a news wire service, while the blog MumbaiHelp offered to help users get through to their family and friends in the city, or to get information about them, and has had a number of successes.

Flickr also proved a useful source of haunting images chronicling the aftermath of the attacks. Journalist Vinukumar Ranganathan’s stream of photos were published by CNN and other major broadcasters. A Google Map showing the key locations and buildings with links to news stories and eyewitness accounts, and CNN’s iReporters flooded the site with their videos and images of the terror attacks.

The Mumbain Metrobloggers have 6 new posts up already today. Read the Mumbai Metroblog here.

Watching the last few days of unrest in the Twin Cities surrounding the Republican National Convention unfold, a few things have made themselves evident to me in a way that I’d heard of and thought a little about but never personally witnessed before.

1. Law enforcement may be hurting more than they are helping.
2. Our local independent media’s coverage has been a good complement to the traditional media’s coverage.
3. Volunteer opportunities abound.

(more…)

Jason DeRusha asks if this weekend’s citizen journalist effort is adding any value. He specifically mentions MnIndy and The Uptake. Good — and civil! — discussion in the comments.

Related to Jason’s question, MnIndy and The Uptake both have longer-form pieces up today addressing yesterday’s events. (Note that most of yesterday’s coverage was live, on-the-spot type stuff.) David Brauer’s got them all in today’s RNC-themed Daily Glean. Follow all of his links.

Glenn Greenwald has a long and oft-updated piece at Salon, focusing largely, but not entirely, on the arrest of Amy Goodman from Democracy Now!. And he has this to say on the Saint Paul PD’s press conference:

Interestingly, all of the standard journalists asked very police-sympathetic questions (“how much property damage was done? were all the criminals part of this same RNC Welcoming Group? How many police officers were injured (answer: none)), while all of the independent journalists — such as those from the superb, intrepid site, The Uptake — asked challenging and skeptical (i.e., real) questions.

On the heels of June’s National Conference for Media Reform and last November’s stirring Life After Newspapers conference, the 4th Annual Fall Media Forum promises to be high-energy and a great opportunity to keep the discussion going about media ownership, net neutrality, evolving citizen journalism, and more.

Mark your calendar:
Saturday, October 4th, 2008
9:00am — 3:00pm
Minneapolis Downtown Central Library

The theme for this year’s event will be “Media Forum: Tools for Democracy, Strategies for Change”. Confirmed presenters include local Fox 9 news anchor Robyne Robinson and Amalia Anderson from the Main Street Project.

Registration will begin in early September. Watch for details on www.tcdailyplanet.net.

Eat them together: Today’s Midday broadcast on MPR was recorded during the Journalism That Matters conference. “Journalists, citizen journalists and members of the public recently got together at Minnesota Public Radio’s UBS Forum to discuss the evolving role of the public in reporting the news.” MPR/Public Insight Journalism’s Michael Caputo, who moderated the forum, comments on the competitive aspect of news.

Rhubarbarism has the best assessment of yesterday’s meta-story of the dispute between MinnPost‘s David Brauer and the Star Tribune‘s Jill Burcum and the rest of the media’s “coverage” of it. He has all the relevant links and appropriate context so just go there and read. I’ve got nothing to add.

The Saint Paul Saints will take the field wearing Zubaz at next Wednesday’s (7/16) game. So will their piggy mascot Boarak Obama and a monkey who will be performing various tasks around the park such as taking tickets.

Lazy Lightning wants to know why it took south metro cities so freaking long to decide they needed to cut fuel costs.

MPR’s Bleacher Bums blog has been branching out from baseball. (I did not intend for that sentence to be so alliterative.) They’ve profiled a number of Lynx players. Today’s installment is Seimone Augustus: Our Unknown Superstar.

TC Daily Planet: Asks for reader comments on comment policy. i.e., We get shitty comments, too. What should we do about it so people don’t hate reading our stuff like they hate reading comments at the Star Tribune and Pioneer Press? (via @mn_newscouncil)

About Minneapolis/St. Paul: Get your kettlebell on. (I have to say I really love About’s practice of self-linking to boost their page views. Love it so much. Not.)

Least Dangerous Game: As cool as everyone thinks the Twitter hide and seek game is, not many people are actually playing. Aric’s going back to the drawing board.

mpls/doesbike: Bicycle Film Festival will include a scavenger race! (via mediation)

Hennepin County has a limited number of low cost rain barrels for sale. They’re going for something like $60. Usual price is more like $200. (via Mpls Issues Forum)

MPLS Mirror presents a very good case for why their citizen journalism effort is worthy of a donation. If you like what they do, help ’em out.

News Cut: 35W Bridge, yay! Wakota Bridge, boo!

Saints Baseball: The other All-Star Game has five local players in it.

The Bridge: Resident response to Grand Rounds missing link proposal public hearing.

Back in February, CNN launched iReport, a Web site built entirely on user-produced news similar to FoxNews’ uReport. Unlike CNN’s own properties—where only iReport submissions that have been handpicked by editors and checked for accuracy ever make it online or on air—the new site was wide open, allowing users to post whatever content they choose. Ah, citizen journalism at its best…or was it?

Now YouTube is getting in on the action with YouTube Citizen News. They’ve hired a News Manager and will be highlighting some of the best news content on YouTube every day sourced from public tips and breaking news around the world.

The inaugural intro video features a mention of The Uptake and this sweet shot of Chuck Olsen driving in his car. Watch the intro video here.