Soon after news broke of the shootings at Virginia Tech, I received an e-mail from a friend at CBC. She’s noticed that as reports were still coming in the scale of the tragedy, CNN had already posted a cellphone video from a student, which captured some of the gun shots.

Over at the BBC, e-mails were coming in from students on campus, who had rushed to the internet to find out what was going on. One of the accounts came from a student, who described how the gunman tried to shot his way into his classroom.

More accounts, photos and video spread across the net on blogs or sites like Flickr and YouTube.

These are dramatic examples of user-generated content, or citizen journalism. Amy Gahran at Poynter says that the “shooting at Virginia Tech is destined to become one of those cornerstone events in citizen journalism and participatory media.”

When news breaks in a location where nearly everyone has a camera-equipped cell phone, and where Internet connectivity abounds, people on the spot will be supplying as much coverage as news organizations – if not more.

Just as the 7 July 2005 bombings in London were a seminal moment for participatory journalism in the UK, this may well be that moment for the US.