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Amidst the flurry of flood-related press coverage cranked out by professionals from major, regional and local media outlets (CNN, CBS, NBC, ABC, New York Times, Minneapolis Star Tribune and our own Fargo Forum to name a few), Fargo-Moorhead residents not only were part of the flood story, but they reported on the crisis themselves. This is a perfect example of citizen journalism, when the people (formerly known as “the audience”) end up playing an active role in the process of collecting, reporting, analyzing and disseminating news and information. (Note: flood photo above by yours truly.)

And Fargo-Moorhead citizens were very active. Not only did they bag 3.5 million sandbags in less than a week, but they posted a flurry of reports and images to CNN’s iReports, YouTube, Facebook, Twitter, Flickr (photos by Sundog CSO Greg Ness), and assorted blogs too numerous to mention.

Taking it a step further, and against the backdrop of their home-made video reports, citizen journalists today are even being interviewed on CNN—flood volunteer turned citizen journalist turned CNN interviewee all in one day.

Reporting wasn’t the only aspect of the virtual flood fight. In addition to the massive national, state and local efforts, Fargo-Moorhead residents also used social media outlets to organize volunteer sandbagging efforts in frantic efforts to save neighborhoods.  Others kept a wary eye on the rising river flood levels via Twitter.

Not to brag, but I must say it is pretty cool to see photos published in national media outlets of our Sundog employees fighting the flood on one web page, while viewing our own employees’ flood images displayed on Flickr and Facebook, representing their very personal perspectives of the event.

It’s been said that the web is the great equalizer, providing individual users with the tools to harness the power of the web just like the “big boys.” Even in the face of a natural disaster, our community united in person and virtually to fight and report on the Flood of 09, bringing with it a whole new dimension of reportage to the huge story.