A desperate manhunt for the suspected killer of three RCMP officers in Moncton, New Brunswick ended late last night after a terrifying 28 hours of uncertainty. Moncton, and millions of others outside of the rarely newsworthy city, followed along closely. At first the crowd was desperate for information, then fearful for developments as the searching stretched into days, and finally, we were able to celebrate that no one else had to die. Thanks to Twitter, the population of Moncton grew from almost 70,000 to a virtual population of millions—myself included.
. @TJProvincial Kinda tacky having your paywall up today. 99 cent special?? My hometown is being attacked. Officers killed. Tacky. #Moncton
— Lindsay Bell (@belllindsay) June 5, 2014
#Moncton Times and Transcript is not lifting their paywall, people going to the Halifax Chronicle Herald for updates.
— Hassan Arif (@hassannb) June 5, 2014
@hassannb Brunswick News should follow @BostonGlobe's lead. Lifted it's paywall during marathon bombings last year. Public good comes first.
— Chelsea Murray (@chelsea_murray) June 5, 2014
The Times-Transcript noted the exact address of where the #Moncton shooter may be. But it's still behind a paywall so maybe no one saw it.
— Allan Gates (@AllanGates1) June 5, 2014
Believe it or not, Moncton's local newspaper is providing safety information to paying customers only! #paywall #greed @TimesTranscript
— Paul Saulnier (@psaulnier) June 5, 2014
Global and CBC received similar complaints when the people of Moncton didn't see anything from them.Those major media entities have a much different reason for their initial absences. The CBC has endured well-publicized budget cuts this year across the board. Now, like Global, they operate in Moncton but are overall run from Halifax, under the broader Maritime bureaus. They couldn't just as quickly pull the cord, cancel what was on the air and interrupt your regular broadcasting to bring you these important messages. And, with the bulk of the crisis happening after dark, it's not as if someone was sitting in Halifax waiting to do just that.So if you wanted news on a shooting? Tune into talk radio.Moncton isn't like anywhere else where a mass shooting has taken over because there is such a small pool of local resources that when the time came for it, they were ill prepared. Broadcasters couldn't regain control of their airwaves and your pen-and-paper reporters couldn't get their news out to anyone without a subscription. People went to Twitter because their televisions and radios gave them nothing, and very little was accessible elsewhere online.This mass exodus of audiences away from traditional media and onto the internet was certainly noticed by the RCMP New Brunswick, who did an excellent job of keeping their Twitter feed updated. They also urged citizens to not share any information about police movements—just in case Justin Bourque was watching.It only took a few hours for everyone to get their footing, but with a killer on the loose and families hiding in their basements, a lot more could have and should have been done. Panic and fear should have been met with up-to-date information, and the promise to be right there the moment there's anything else to report.Despite their small-city status, Moncton is reminding the rest of Canada there's a lot more to prepare for in the event of crisis. Have your police ready, keep your hospitals in top form, but loosen the leash on your journalists enough so they can get their jobs done and provide immediate information to the local population. Media budget cuts and staff outsourcing are a bad first line of defence when people want to know where their news was when they needed it, and it won't be accepted a second time. @kristie__smithActually shocked and disgusted The Times and Transcript still has a pay wall up. Good on ya, Irving. #Moncton
— Chris Roberts (@ChrisRoberts_7) June 6, 2014