My kids getting interviewed at RNC Demonstration by Annie Baxter at MPR

At the beginning of the month I was completely drawn in by the RNC. I live in St Paul. I’m not super political – but I’m a sucker for taking my kids to big, historical events. I wrote about it in our personal blog, but even that entry is as apolitical as I could be. I made a conscious decision to not mention it other places, such as this blog, but an article in TwinCities.com/Pioneer Press opened the door for me to talk about it and really to frame my own experience based on their comments. (Protester or press? During RNC, it often didn’t matter.)

The article outlines the number of journalists that were arrested at the RNC, most famously Amy Goodwin from Democracy Now. It also describes the difficulty that the police had in determining who was Press. Heck, even I was holding a video camera most of the time I was there. Luckily I was also holding my daughters’ hands, which I think gave me higher credentials most of the time.

I can’t talk too much about the event without getting off track. I will say that my own experience and others I’ve talked to – we noted that there seemed to be 2, to 3 to 4 times as many police officers as protesters, more than half the police in riot gear. So maybe they should have been in a position to ask questions first but I wasn’t in their shoes, maybe they had different orders. Also from what I saw people weren’t disguising themselves. What I said to my kids on the way there was – don’t stand too close to anyone wearing a bandana on their face; don’t bother the cops if you get lost, find a mama with a cell phone and have her call me. And those were the two extremes to avoid.

Back to the issue that relates to broadband (kinda) – citizen journalism. I think that a silver lining from the RNC is that this will boost the conversation about citizen journalism. Clearly it’s here to stay.
I’ve talked about the role of citizen journalists, placebloggers, whatever you want to call them before. Especially in rural areas, when traditional local media has disappeared or cut back, local folks have been pick up the slack. Becky LaPlant wrote about her experience at The New Pamphleteers/New Reporters: A Passion for Place, where while many were making distinctions between “big J” and “little j” journalists, John Nichols issued an invitation to think of anyone who gathers information and conveys it to others as a journalist.

The technology and availability of broadband have supported this effort. Digital video cameras are cheap. It’s free to post the video to YouTube. It’s free to start a blog to promote and frame your video with commentary. And others can comment on your videos and blog for free.

John Nichols (from the conference Becky attended) noted that journalism ethics are a lie; that has been replaced (or maybe always came from) personal ethics. And that’s what I saw a lot last week – people using personal ethics and people documenting events that supported or thwarted their personal ethics. I think it’s a great thing and one upshot I love – the debate that will arise about what do you do with citizen journalists (say at a Convention) because I think the answer is – assume the need to be transparent – and how can the existing infrastructure make room for citizen journalists.

I’m hoping this fall to highlight some of the Minnesota citizen journalists and place bloggers.