The question of whether or not social media counts as legitimate journalism should be settled: It absolutely is.

In today’s rapid news world, information is sent back and forth at such a rapid rate that it’s hard to tell what’s going on. Journalists have been gatekeepers, the 4th estate, and now they are cow herders, if cows were information.

So, Hofstra University students, whose school hosted last night’s presidential debate, herded information and live-blogged the debate on social media, including Facebook and Twitter. The Long Island Report, a student news outlet at the university, created Facebook groups that allowed individuals to instantly post pictures and updates from the debate. They used Twitter to instantly update, as well, and they created Storifys to engage the people about the debate. More interestingly, because the LIR didn’t have enough students to do all this live-blogging, they allowed students from around the campus to participate – civic journalism.

This is an unusual viewpoint from a school- they were actually hosting the event from which the news was coming from. Moreover, they were competing with thousands of other journalists at the event from the United States and around the world. Being so close to the action, they had a unique opportunity to cover the event from an insider perspective. Sometimes the debates do not create the news by itself; sometimes it’s the events outside or around the event that produces news. Any protests, gathering, and speeches can quickly change the news lede, so because they were a part of the school, these student journalists had the opportunity to document a unique story better than any other news outlet.

Therefore, the creation of blogs and blogging has allowed individuals, at a local level, to report things that may or may not have a national implication, and because they do so, traditional journalists have to realize that this type of journalism, including social media blogging, is legitimate. The gatekeepers may own some parts of the gate, but blogs often have control over the herds, and any cow that gets loose is directly allowed access to the open gate because it is rather moos-worthy. (Yes, I went there.)