Reporting a tragedy of any magnitude is a test of any journalist or news organisation. Unfortunately, recent days have produced a string of grievous events which pose great challenges to journalists who are traditionally tasked with informing the public.

However, as everyone knows, the dynamic in the newsroom has changed. The audience can now inform journalists, who then distribute information more widely, informing a wider audience in their turn. This process of audience participation in generating news widely occurs through social media. The death of singer Amy Winehouse and the recent bombings and shooting in Norway have both been the subject of vast discussion via social media.

How should journalists respond to this mass of information and turn it into a story? As previously reported, the website Storify is one method via which journalists can collate and create a narrative, gathering information from several sources. In essence, this website provides a means of editing, or rather curating, information gathered from sites like Facebook, Flickr and particularly, from Twitter. This kind of collection of participatory social media is often referred to as 'crowd sourcing'.

So what are the pros and cons of using Storify? Obviously, the ability to collate information from multiple sources and see it in a clearly laid-out progression. See for instance, this Storify entry, which was praised by Nieman Lab, by Joseph Stashko, which uses a combination of images, including some from Google maps, video and twitter posts.

The fact that all this information is curated by individuals or by organisations leads to a multiplicity of accounts of the same events, see for instance this Storify account of the tragic happenings in Norway , collated by The Daily Beast.

While this multiplicity of accounts does allow users to see a broader picture of what happened, this raises certain issues from a consumer perspective. Unlike stories posted on news websites, it is often not clear whether the information has been validated by Storify users.

Equally, an even broader stream of information can be gathered by simply searching a Twitter hash-tag. While, arguably, this produces too much information to sift through, notable posts by officials and national representatives that show up on a Twitter search (position in search results in dependant on how recent the post is), such as the twitter post linking to the official message of condolence from the British Monarchy, are not included in the Storify feeds.

Many users, however, will find the Storify pages that attempt to simply document the unfolding of events in Norway, not collect opinion and condolences, far more practical in terms of gathering initial information.

In documenting the reaction to the death of Amy Winehouse, the CBC News Community Storify account has combined both personal reactions recorded on Twitter - from relative unknowns to noted tweeters like Stephen Fry, videos of the singer's last performance and photographs showing the gathering crowds around her home after her death. In this case, Storify is acting more like a curated condolence book, (although there is a section of the page devoted to debating the question of whether the singers' death has overshadowed other happenings in Norway).

Storify's main flaw lies in the fact that it is intensely reliant on the curator, the Storify account user, who ultimately makes judgements about what information is valid and appropriate to be included, like any standard blogging process . As there is no way of enforcing any idea of balanced, objective journalism on Spotify, this could, potentially, lead to very subjective accounts of global events. It falls to individuals and news organisations to enforce journalistic standards upon themselves.

However, crafting a story many varieties of digital media can lead to collation and aggregation of information from a board variety of sources, with many different perspectives, which - most crucially - is easy to use and engaging for the online audience. In documenting such sensitive and significant global events over recent days, Storify has certainly proved it has merit as a story-telling tool for journalists.

Sources: Editors' Weblog , Neiman Lab, Royal.gov.uk , Storify (Home Page) , Storify by CBC News Community Storfiy by the Daily Beast , Storify by Joseph Stashko ,