Via OJR:
By now, we should be used to relying on readers and viewers to provide coverage for us in times of natural disasters. Sure, we can drive the trucks to the point where a hurricane is forecast to make landfall, but forecasts aren’t always spot-on. And we get little warning for tornadoes, and none for earthquakes. (Twitter notwithstanding.) Professional journalists have relied upon eyewitness descriptions, photos and videos from people on the scene of calamities, since long before the Internet.
But if that’s all we’re using user-generated content for in our news reports, we’re leaving ourselves too vulnerable to authorities who wish to control our coverage. Organizers and supporters of the Occupy movement have recognized the importance of putting cameras in the hands of participants, to minimize the chance that a newsworthy moment happens without being recorded for the public at large.
That ought to become more journalists’ role, too – not just specifically for Occupy protests, but for all continuing coverage of daily life in our communities. I hope that reporters across the country take into their news meetings a copy of that NY Times blog post I linked earlier in this piece, and say to their colleagues, “we need to find ways to prevent this from happening in our community.”
