Fragmentary Evidence

To get a dramatic sense of how technological changes have affected journalism over the past 150 years, compare this amazing 1864 photograph showing a New York Herald encampment during the civil war, and this San Francisco Chronicle article about how several bystander videos have allowed anyone in the world to watch the fatal shooting of a young man by transit police at an Oakland BART station late on New Year’s Eve. (The prevailing speculation is that the young officer might have thought he was using his taser, not his gun; he does look baffled after he shoots the young man.)