With my iPhone, this blog, my Twitter and Facebook accounts, and now this handy little guy, I like to fancy myself as something of a citizen journalist. Of course, I’m a journalist “by training,” so says my diploma – but I always preferred the reporting part to the information-gathering part. In other words, I hated interviewing.
But if I happen to witness something I get a big rush from being the one who gets to put it out there, like when the fabric store near my house burned down and my pictures were on Twitter before any news crews made the scene.
Friday night our search for a bar to replace Dish as our weekend hangout led us to the Bayou, which has a laid-back atmosphere, big TVs and some pretty legit gumbo. I went in to order while Brian stayed outside and talked to some people he knew. A few minutes went by, and he called me to say he’d walked across the street to check out the fire at Sidestreet. So I ran out there with my little Flip cam and took some video. And I tweeted what was going on.
And yes, I concede that it is a little weird that I’ve been witness to two serious blazes in the past year. I guess I’m just lucky.
Anyway, I got a call Monday from a reporter from one of the local television stations who’d seen my video on Facebook and wondered if they could use it and if I maybe could give a soundbite. So I did. And I won’t again.
The whole thing just made me a little sad. Not because the bar’s gone – I can count on one hand the number of times I’ve been there. I just couldn’t help thinking back to my j-school days, going back and forth with video-averse professors.
“They have the upper hand on us, because they can distribute news immediately. We have to wait ’til the next morning.”
“BUT they don’t have time to interview and fact-check – we get more time to build a stronger story.”
And now the guys who used to have the “upper hand” are asking lil’ ole’ me if they can use some video I posted on my Facebook page and get some quotes – three days later.
It’s just easier to carry on as a roving news vigilante than it is to suppress all my pie-in-the-sky HOPES! for the POTENTIAL! for news organizations if they just EMBRACE THESE NEW METHODS! when I get too close to the “pros.”
Because talking about it’s a lot easier than doing it. I think that applies to, well, everything in life. It’s freakin’ frustrating.
By the way, here’s the video I shot.
Side Street Bar & Grill burns from Jen Simmons on Vimeo.
[...] which is a brilliant blog out of Memphis, talks about the peaks and valleys of citizen journalism. Friday night our search for a bar to replace Dish as our weekend hangout led us to the Bayou, which [...]