I've been a huge proponent of citizen journalists. I've covered them on WCCO's extremely mainstream media airwaves. I've written and linked to their work at this blog. I was excited to see them unearth interesting stories that for one reason or another didn't make it to the airwaves and pages of the big media operations.
After Day One of the RNC, I'm not sure they're bringing much to the table.
All day via Twitter, CJ's and new media organizations sent out blow by blow and block by block accounts of cops pepper spraying and protesters getting busted. I linked yesterday to TheUptake.org's fascinating live coverage from within the protests.
I've spent some time reflecting on the non-stop dispatches from the violent side of the protests. And I'm left with this:
10,000 or so people protested peacefully. Military veterans, soccer moms, people with issues that spanned the globe. I'm not seeing anywhere near the volume of coverage from new media or citizen journalists on that. Where are those untold stories?
200-300 arrests of people who didn't follow the permitted route should not have been a surprise to anyone. Is it worthy of non-stop citizen journalist coverage?
The knee-jerk anti-police attitude of the CJ's and some of the new media organizations is as offensive to me as some of the knee-jerk anti-protester attitude in the mainstream media. (Jeff Guntzel's diary in the Minnesota Independent was a welcome departure from that. It put out pictures, it didn't judge, it shared his experience. It was fantastic.)
I thought the goal of citizen journalism was to bring a new perspective, a new way of telling stories. Instead we get live-as-it-happens coverage without perspective. That sounds like the same criticism that many have hurled our way.
I'm disappointed. But maybe I'm wrong. Let me know.
UPDATE: Keep the comments coming, it's great. I should say that I regret titling this "Citizen Journalists: Failure?" as I don't think they failed yesterday. I am questioning the strategy of "flooding the zone" with so many independent voices covering the exact same story. I get that the mainstream media does this. I thought the new media was supposed to rescue us from pack journalism and enlighten us with untold stories. I worry that a public, already skeptical of bloggers and citizen journalists, will totally tune out because much of the online coverage has been predictably pro-protester and anti-cop.
