Every morning, on the way to work, many Americans pass by a current or future stimulus project. Some $27 billion of taxpayer money will be spent on fixing roads, replacing bridges, and building signs and light posts. With that much money on the table, corruption, waste, and abuses of power are nearly inevitable. 

The website ProPublica is amassing a network of citizen watchdogs to keep an eye on the individual projects and the stimulus as a whole. In the beginning, volunteers will be asked simple questions: When did construction start? What companies are showing up? The idea is to tap into local knowledge that ProPublica’s professional investigative reporters in New York City might not have.

“Ultimately what we’re trying to do is tell a story that would be more difficult with traditional methods,” ProPublica’s Amanda Michel told me on the phone. Michel gained experience directing Off the Bus, a groundbreaking citizen-driven campaign news project for the Huffington Post. With the new “Adopt-a-Stimulus Project” and ProPublica’s budding reporting network, Michel hopes to “build a network of people on the ground to tell us what’s really going on in their communities.”

Knowing that an army of citizen watchdogs are looking over their shoulders might keep the stimulus recipients a little more honest.

Source: ProPublica

Public television's international news show, Worldfocus, has entered into a first-of-its-kind partnership with GroundReport to air a new segment consisting entirely of videos produced by GroundReport’s extensive network of citizen journalists. According to the Editors Weblog, this is “the first time that a mainstream U.S. channel has committed to airing a citizen journalism segment on prime time television.”

The first segment asks global contributors to send in their advice for President Obama. Submissions are due February 15.

Three weeks after the Republican National Convention came to St. Paul, Mayor Chris Coleman announced that the city will drop charges of unlawful assembly against journalists stemming from protests outside of the Xcel Energy Center. The Associated Press quoted Coleman’s prepared statement: “This decision reflects the values we have in St. Paul to protect and promote our First Amendment rights to freedom of the press.”

In the weeks leading to this decision, journalists across the country have shared outrage, disappointment, and anger at the sheer number of their own arrested throughout the four-day event. And yet, in decrying the treatment of their credentialed peers, journalists fail to recognize that every citizen has a First Amendment right to record events taking place on a public street, including police actions.

This right has been identified in federal court, specifically in Robinson v. Fetterman and Smith v. City of Cumming. The United States Supreme Court has also articulated, in Branzburg v. Hayes, that the First Amendment right to freedom of the press applies not only to the mainstream and well-funded press, but also to the “lonely pamphleteer.” With the rise of handheld technology and the internet, today’s “lonely pamphleteer,” the blogger or citizen journalist, has gone from an abstract idea to a reality relatively quickly. For example, citizen journalism non-profit the UpTake had a notable presence at both the Democratic and Republican conventions, streaming tons of live footage of protester and police clashes with the use of cell phones.

So, who IS a journalist? What criteria will determine who qualifies for dropped charges and who does not? And why aren’t we hearing more outrage from journalists concerning First Amendment rights violations in general, rather than solely addressing the rights of traditional journalists?

A forum sponsored by the Minnesota chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists held at the University of Minnesota Monday evening sought to identify what went right and what went wrong with media and law enforcement during the RNC. Moderated by the Poynter Institute’s Al Tompkins, the panel included St. Paul Dep. Mayor Ann Mulholland, KARE-11 photojournalist Jonathan Malat, Assistant Police Chief Matt Bostrom and Pioneer Press reporter Mara Gottfried.

Notably absent from the panel was a representative of alternative media, although as the conversation ensued, concerned citizens and journalists from alternative media outlets took their turn at the microphone. Charlie Underwood, who was a street medic during the protests, disputed the focus on journalists. “Are you trying to reserve a special category of citizen that does not get pepper sprayed, that does not get arrested, that does not have the same punitive things happen to them under these situations of police brutality that the rest of us do?” he asked.

Tompkins responded, “The question that we’re here for tonight, Charlie, is this: How do people like Jonathan and Mara do their jobs as journalists and not get arrested?”

“How do all of us do our jobs and not get arrested?” interjected someone from the crowd. The man, who identified himself as Ed Felien, editor of the Minneapolis neighborhood newspaper Southside Pride, went to the microphone.

“All of us have a right to be on the streets. Journalism has gone through a tremendous revolution in the last 10 years. It’s no longer the two or three corporations that control the television networks or the newspapers. There’s no longer this concentration of power that has a monopoly on all the news. There’s a lot of stuff happening on the Internet, there’s a lot of stuff happening on YouTube and so on, that has much more validity for people than whatever Rupert Murdoch thinks is news. I think Charlie’s point is absolutely to the point. I’m not a member of that media, I’m a member of a different, alternative media, and I have absolute rights to witness what’s happening and a responsibility to communicate that.”

When Tompkins confronted panelists with the question of how to define a journalist, they displayed clear reluctance to give a definition. Gottfried seemed the least willing to answer the question, simply responding with, “I don’t know.” Deputy Mayor Mulholland said that she believed the mayor was referring to anyone who was there to tell a story and called themselves a journalist, but went on to say, “I have no idea how to define a journalist, and I don’t know that all of us in the room really know how to define journalist. I therefore ask the question, how are law enforcement officials supposed to answer that question while in the midst of a public safety scene?”

Well, the question was not answered that evening. Nor, perhaps, should it be. As First Amendment lawyer Mark Anfinson, who attended the forum, pointed out, defining who is and who is not a journalist leads us down a slippery slope of government regulation of the press, which is a very clear violation of how the courts have interpreted freedom of press.

Another local media lawyer, Steven P. Aggergaard, who writes the blog Media Law Minnesota, provides perhaps the most clearheaded analysis of what should be considered in this potentially precedent-setting endeavor:

The First Amendment was not adopted to protect journalists. It was enacted to protect free expression for everyone. True, the First Amendment specifically ensures a free press, but I simply do not believe that "the press" had the same meaning in 1791 as it does today. Early Americans wanted to make sure that the people who operated printing presses and therefore enabled large-scale free expression would not be subject to the burdensome licensing schemes prevalent in Europe. The First Amendment’s drafters did not intend to extend special privileges to massive for-profit media conglomerates or even to bloggers for that matter. Rather, they sought to protect the rights of anyone who had something to say, protesters included.

As for those protesters, I completely agree that some at the RNC crossed the line. As I said previously, those who participated in the near-riots committed criminal acts. But the large number of onlookers who merely sought to express themselves, to watch people express themselves, or to document people expressing themselves committed no crimes. Cases closed.

UPDATE (9/26/08): Watch video of the SPJ panel at the UpTake.

Image by uberculture, licensed under Creative Commons.

Throughout the Republican National Convention, the offices of the UpTake were a central hub for bloggers and independent media. Located just outside the security barrier that protected the Xcel Center in downtown St. Paul, bloggers including Jane Hamsher of Firedoglake, Glenn Greenwald of Salon.com, Matt Stoller of Open Left, and many others used the office to file stories and report on both the official RNC events and the protests.

For the latest episode of the UtneCast, I spoke with Jason Barnett (pictured left), executive director of the UpTake, about what his organization hopes to add to the coverage of the RNC and how technology is changing the media.

You can listen to the interview below, or to subscribe to the UtneCast for free through iTunes, click here.

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 Interview with Jason Barnett of the UpTake on Media and the RNC : Play Now | Play in Popup | Download

Twitter isn't the only new website that's changing the party conventions. This week’s gala also has the distinction of being the first Demcoratic National Convention of the YouTube era. Throngs of delegates, protestors, and journalists (professional or otherwise), armed with video cameras, are descending on Denver and swarming the Pepsi Center in hopes of capturing a politician’s gaffe, a protestor’s stunt, or a police officer’s unwarranted action.

The footage is already piling up: There's a Fox News crew accosted by angry protestors, a clash between anti- and pro-abortion rights advocates, and disgruntled protestors being corralled by police (though the inclusion of the word “RIOT” in the clip’s title might be overselling the scuffle). There’s also an interview with Hillary Clinton supporters—not quite as formidable as the media would have us believe—reasoning that their candidate still has a chance of clinching the nomination.

Inside the convention itself, small gatherings and speeches that might get passed over by national networks are being captured by the video sharing site. These include a standout speech by Representative Sheila Jackson Lee (D-TX) at a breakfast meeting. Also inside the walls of the convention center, a video meme is growing in strength as conventioneers shoot “I Nominate Barack Obama Because…” clips at the YouTube booth in the lobby. 

For busy people who missed the live television broadcasts, YouTube is also a good place to find clips from network coverage of the convention, such as Ted Kennedy’s opening-night speech. Though interested viewers should watch these clips now, since they clearly violate copyright laws.

Image courtesy of jonsson, licensed by Creative Commons.

For more of Utne.com’s ongoing coverage of the Democratic National Convention, click here.

User-generated news projects continue to flourish and compete directly with mainstream media. Recent developments in the world of citizen journalism underscore both the promise and the pitfalls of this emerging field.

The global news site Allvoices (“the first open media site where anyone can report from anywhere,” according to their banner) is upping the ante by offering cash incentives for popular news stories. Allvoices users who submit articles gathering 100,000 page views over six months will receive $1,000, and a million page views in the same period will net the author $100,000.

Meanwhile, Mediabistro reports that CNN’s three-year-old citizen journalism offshoot iReport is gaining traction, with “85,000 people registered as ‘reporters.’” The site’s “watershed moment” came in April 2007 when it ran a cell-phone video of the Virginia Tech shootings.

Finally, Global Voices passes along news of YouTube’s citizen journalism contest, which is soliciting three-minute videos “about someone in your community you believe should be known by the rest of the world.”

I’m all for the proliferation of diverse alternatives to the mainstream media, and citizen journalism looks like it’s here to stay, for better or worse. iReport provides a repository for eyewitness news and user videos, and YouTube’s video contest is an intriguing experiment. But the flaw in Allvoices’ incentive model seems obvious: To what lengths will people go in order to rack up page views for that cash reward? How will Allvoices ensure the credibility of its stories? If a winning story is revealed to be false, but the page views still add up, does the author still get the money? The scheme is reminiscent of Gawker Media’s business model, which also raises ethical questions.

Even when tenacious amateur journalists with good intentions place themselves on the front lines of an event—rather than, say, snarking from afar à la Gawker—they can’t always be counted upon to produce accurate stories. At Open Democracy, Evgeny Morozov provides a thorough commentary on citizen journalists’ coverage of the Russia-Georgia conflict. While mainstream news organizations scrambled to get reporters to the Caucasus in the conflict’s first days, native bloggers began filing regular dispatches. But problems quickly emerged, Morozov argues. The first was trust: News reports have appeared on blogs with little or no credibility or previous reporting history. Furthermore, internet access and technological resources are scarce in the region, and average citizens lack the budget necessary to capture quality video footage.

None of these shortcomings are likely to spell the end of citizen journalism, however, and that’s a good thing. In the coming years, methods of amateur reporting will no doubt be refined, the kinks ironed out, sound practices developed. Cash incentives like the ones offered by Allvoices are probably not a good idea, but that conflict of interest is not unique to amateur journalism—it’s no secret that the corporate media world is full of people placing profit ahead of journalistic integrity. Yes, there are problems created by such a huge and diverse range of enterprises in citizen media, but the cream will rise to the top, as user-driven media hubs like the Sunlight Foundation and the Center for Citizen Media have already demonstrated.

Image courtesy of sskennel, licensed under Creative Commons.

Over the course of several months, “citizen contributor” Patrick Corcoran steadfastly plugged his favorite Democratic congressional candidate, Mark Pera, on the Chicago Tribune’s user-generated, local reporting site, Triblocal.com. Corcoran wrote more than a dozen articles in support of Pera, and the Pera campaign happily linked to his stories on their site, reports Michael Miner of the Chicago Reader.

The doting stories didn’t raise an alarm online, but they did once they hit newsprint. Every week, a round up of the site’s best stories, Trib Local, is shipped with the Chicago Tribune. The January 10 print supplement’s leading headline—“Democrat Mark Pera picks up support”—caught the eye of the parents of a staffer for Pera’s rival campaign and Corcoran’s hand finally tipped: The “citizen contributor” was also the Pera campaign’s media spokesperson. Whoops.

Citizen journalism is a much-lauded fruit of internet democracy, as Adam Weinstein notes in Mother Jones, but the stories produced by these self-selected reporters are seldom vetted by editors or otherwise quality-controlled, spawning a briar patch of new media ethics questions. “The Triblocal.com kind of citizen journalism has at least one conspicuous defect,” writes Miner, “nothing gets written about unless somebody feels like doing the writing.”

—Jason Ericson

Image by  djloche , licensed under  Creative Commons .

The Knight Citizen News Network recently released its Top Ten Rules for Limiting Legal Risk, a guide for bloggers and citizen journalists. The list offers specific advice for following the precepts set by traditional journalism, but it’s tweaked to fit the instant, blogocentric world of the new New Journalists. It's interactive, with a wealth of in-depth explanations, videos, and quizzes.

—Morgan Winters

  Image by dcdailyphotos, licensed under Creative Commons.

At a forum I attended this weekend, everyone generally agreed that the internet is the most effective mass-communication tool in the history of mankind. Now it’s up to journalists (including citizen journalists) to figure out how to use it. The event, called “Life After Newspapers,” was organized the Twin Cities Media Alliance and attended by the media reform organization Free Press and was held in the Minneapolis downtown public library.*

Most of the people agreed that it’s currently possible to bring more worthwhile stories and voices to more people than ever before. Janis Lane-Ewart, executive director of the excellent community radio station KFAI, talked about bringing women and minorities into the media landscape. Her work seems like an uphill battle, but she spoke of a coming generation of media savvy voices, poised to change the face of news.

Not everyone was as optimistic about the power of young people to save the media. Nora Paul, director of the Institute for New Media Studies at the University of Minnesota, spoke about the lack of skepticism displayed by many of her students. She said she was struck by how many people passively swallow the information they find on the internet without asking the important questions: Who is writing this, what are they telling me, and why do they know what they know? Great journalism isn’t going to stop well-funded spin experts from sending out lies and half-truths over the internet, and without a healthy dose of skepticism, that information can be dangerous.

With everyone talking about where great journalism will to come from, Steve Perry of the blog the Daily Mole, posed a hypothetical: Maybe it won’t come at all. With a heaping mound of cynicism, Perry suggested that good journalism might simply cease to be.

Robert McChesney, the keynote speaker and one of the nation’s premier media experts, struck a middle ground between the optimism and the pessimism surrounding the state of the media. McChesney walked a fine line between realizing the threats to the media and telling people that the threats can be overcome.  Local blogger Paul Schmeltzer has posted an interview with McChesney over at the Minnesota Monitor.

McChesney’s point is basically this: There are huge threats to free speech, independent media, and information in general. But that doesn’t mean people should give up. The organization he founded, Free Press, has won significant battles for independent media lately. McChesney said he sincerely believes that independent media is winning and will win the fight for net neutrality. Concerned citizens simply need to step up and make their voices heard.

—Bennett Gordon

For more on the fight for media reform, read Keith Goetzman’s piece Big Media Meets Its Match from the July / August issue of Utne Reader.

* Correction: The event was organized by the Twin Cities Media Alliance, not the Free Press as originally reported.