A useful, short account by a BBC journalist on how producer-users and User Generated Content have changed covering 'black hole' stories like Syria:https://www.opendemocracy.net/ourbee...room-practices

But how do journalists make sense of what is happening on the ground?
Journalists cannot be everywhere - at home and in safer places than Syria, so her findings are also important and relevant when it is challenging to report, either due to logistics or safety. The OBL raid comes to mind, with a local resident Tweeting from nearby or the profusion of cellphone footage during the Paris attacks.

In the UK context was it right for IIRC Sky, then the BBC, to broadcast "live" the footage from Woolwich after Drummer Rigby's killer explained why? That remains controversial today.

Doubtless there is a main thread already.