The Russian Subway Bombing: Phoning it In

Commuters make cell phone calls while leaving the Park Kultury subway station that was hit by an explosion, in Moscow, Monday, March 29, 2010. Female suicide bombers blew themselves up Monday in twin attacks on Moscow subway stations packed with rush-hour passengers, killing many people and wounding several more, officials said. The carnage blamed on rebels from the Caucasus region follows the killings of several high-profile Islamic militant leaders there. (AP Photo/ Egor Barbatunov)

Although it might not seem noteworthy at first, this struck me as one of the more interesting photos coming out of the coverage of the subway bombing in Russia yesterday. It shows citizens exiting the Park Kultury subway station, site of one of the attacks — although the caption doesn’t state how close to the event the picture was taken.

The photo gets a lot more interesting after reading the last seven paragraphs of yesterday’s post at the NYT Lede blog. There, a woman by the name of Catherine Fitzpatrick, who blogs about Russia, is interviewed about the surprising the lack of citizen journalism yesterday. Not only were few pictures and videos uploaded — as compared to what we’ve seen from Iran, for example — but State-owned media took control of the story within the hour.

What the picture drives home is that Russians weren’t without the means to scoop the story.