Citizen Journalist, Social Revolutionary, or Pool Pooper?

You know when newspapers started offering online “blogs” I envisioned “citizen journalism” as being a catalyst for newspapers to take an online lead and run with it to fruition. They plow the field and provide water and sunlight (along with the occasional weed removal) while the public provided content is the seed that will eventually grow into that harvest-able news piece.

Sounds like a good deal right? The “blogger” gets the satisfaction of his/her particular issue receiving exposure and the paper gets another data source from which to mine news stories. But it hasn’t worked out that way. At all.

In fact the juiciest, most titillating or scandalous tidbits pointing toward government corruption or incompetence, openly and thoroughly discussed online, got little if any exposure in print. One can only guess as to why. The paper has limited resources, concerns about alienating advertisers, or the editors simply have their own agenda to push... take your pick. But something has been happening via “citizen journalism” in Beaufort County, just not as I would have ever expected it.

When the school district decided to have a mandatory countywide meeting, forcing all employees to travel at their own expense from one end of the county to the other, all it took was a slight stir of the pot and suddenly buses were provided. When it came to light that a certain school was almost completely devoid of updated teacher websites, within about a week of open discussion online and out of the blue contact information and teacher bios started popping up on the school’s website.

So while the citizen journalist might have been woefully ineffective at getting newspaper reporters to pick up the torch and shine it brightly on the injustices of the world, bloggers can take at least a small amount of solace in realizing that sometimes, even if the issue is rather small, they can make a difference by speaking out. Sure you’ll leave yourself wide open to public ridicule and character attacks. And it probably won’t win you any popularity contests, but the public awareness gig has always been a thankless job, no matter what the medium. The internet and public web logs are becoming more intertwined with everyday life and has made it that much easier for an ordinary John Q. Public to become a rabid watchdog. It’s time everyone took notice.

Who’s next?