On October 22, 2014, news of the Ottawa shooting began with a misspelled tweet and a cellphone video by Globe and Mail reporter Josh Wingrove. At the same time, veteran CBC cameraman Jean Brousseau quietly rolled his camera and collected raw footage that would later tell a full insider story while Bruce Arthur, sports columnist for the Toronto Star, found himself near Parliament Hill instead of the hockey arena.

Gunfire in pariament

— Josh Wingrove (@josh_wingrove) October 22, 2014

Visual discretion is advised (Source: CBC)

The structure of the reports were non-traditional: bullet points, quotes, brief summary paragraphs with links to allow for the option to dig deeper, photo galleries with informative captions and interactive maps. By forgoing the news briefs and article format, the live coverage in this way permitted more engagement and more consistent and updated information.

This is why, when looking back at the archives, one hopes that someone patted all these journalists on the back for accomplishing what they did on that day. Maclean’s had an ongoing ScribbleLive stream of tweets, photos, videos and audio. The Globe put together an interactive timeline that included time-stamped maps, tweets, updates and raw cellphone photos and videos from their reporters on Parliament Hill.

The rapid collation of information and visual illustration of all the details only continued in the days and months after the shooting. The Globe staff put together a “What we know so far” piece, assimilating the same elements as their live coverage. CBC put up the raw footage collected by Brousseau and reconstructed everything that happened on the Hill, based solely on the video. Maclean’s also reconstructed the entire day’s events solely through quotes from witnesses, politicians, security members and so forth who were at or near the site in question.

And then there was the commentary that retraced the entire day again. Ian Brown took the reader through Ottawa “in the footsteps of a killer” the day after the shooting. Arthur walked us through the streets hours after the shooting ended in an article published on the day (to me, the most memorable article from the day).  A couple of months later, Wingrove took us through his first-hand traumatic experience and its psychological aftermath.

All these articles and interactive timelines are a testament to the multifaceted nature of modern-day journalism that only intensifies in live situations like the Ottawa shooting. The successful execution of the examples above are a testament to the fact that even live coverage can be detailed and extensive, and that the efforts that went—and are still going—into portraying the full story are worthy of recognition.

On it’s one year anniversary, Maclean’s put together a long-form feature detailing the actions during and after the shooting of “the heroes of October 22“, and The Globe and Mail put together another timeline of yesterday’s memorial ceremony, adding links to past multimedia articles from the day for context.

Perhaps, one year on, we should have a conversation about the lines of live reporting in this way. Josh Wingrove’s video has been viewed over 4.5 million times now, but no one ever asked if it should have been released as quickly as it was. Couldn’t it have compromised the situation? Couldn’t it have caused trauma despite the disclaimer for viewers it was released with? Would the live reporting have been as strong without it?

These questions weren’t asked because they didn’t need to be. Despite the rapidness of the day and the multi-faceted details of the shooting, Canadian news organisation gave an impressive display of thorough and careful reporting. There were no glaring mistakes made. There were no breaches caused. In fact, the combination of live-tweeting, multimedia and interactive journalism and quick, thoughtful commentary on October 22 may be one of the best displays of Canadian journalism.

When a gunman attacked Parliament Hill on October 22, Canada was left with many questions and eager journalists determined to find the answers first.

As the shooting shook Ottawa, many journalists were quick to jump onto social media to give breaking news updates depicting what was occurring on site. But what some reporters didn’t do before sending out their tweets was ask: “Are we putting the people of Ottawa in more danger?”

With the death of 24-year-old Cpl. Nathan Cirillo and a gunman still at large, by sending out a message with their location (and the location of civilians), journalists could have been leaving a trail of breadcrumbs for an attacker.

Online content should be reported as carefully as print content and, when possible, subjected to full editing, says the Canadian Association of Journalists in its ethical guidelines. It also says that speed should never compromise accuracy, credibility or fairness.

Many journalists started tweeting out photographs and posts describing their exact location, and some posted photographs and videos of officers across the city. Others may have given away their locations, even if they didn’t mean to. If they had enabled location services on Twitter previously, each current tweet would have a specific address or neighbourhood attached to it, allowing anyone to see the exact location of the sender.

At one point, information about where Prime Minister Stephen Harper was hidden surfaced on Twitter, but was quickly revised.

Harper was hidden in Parliament’s Centre Block when the gunman stormed into the building. Releasing information of where he was located during this attack seems dangerous.

Other individuals gave an update that they were “still trapped,” but did not disclose where they actually were.

In the age of social media, it has become accepted that private information will be posted even when it probably shouldn’t be released into the public realm. The public is eager to know exactly what’s happening in the moment, and journalists are hungry to get the story first. As a result, reporters often make mistakes when stories are breaking. This is understandable with the confusion and speed of unfolding stories, but because an attacker can follow any stream of posts, social media posts risk putting citizens’ lives in danger.

The RCMP National Division expressed their concern with social media, which was retweeted 3,385 times and had many comments asking the media to stop posting footage of their locations. The Ottawa Police Department also asked for social media silence.

Journalists need to remember that social media is accessible to everyone. A written policy may be helpful for reporters when using social media during attacks like this. Photographs and locations may have to wait to be released until lockdowns have been lifted and police have found the perpetrators. Not only are journalists risking their own lives by reporting in the field, but possibly also the lives of everyone around them—even if they are in hiding.