The Promise and the Horror of a Citizen Free Press
Has Elon Musk singlehandedly restored the competitiveness of citizen journalism?
"We have it in our power to begin the world over again." -- Thomas Paine, Common Sense
During Ron Paul’s campaign for the GOP presidential nomination in 2008, Twitter, dubbed as the world’s first micro-blogging site, existed, but its potential was a dream yet to be realized.
Started in 2006 as an SMS-based platform, the 140 character limit on posts was a function of cell-carrier’s protocol limits. The advent of the iPhone helped Twitter explode.
If there was anything that made it clear the old media excluded unapproved voices, it was the presidential primary cycle in 2008. Establishment media pundits and anchors did everything they could to suppress the influence of Ron Paul and Mike Gravel.(Gravel ran against the establishment Democrats for the DNC nomination just like Paul faced establishment Republicans). Gravel was the former Senator from Alaska who famously read the Pentagon Papers into the congressional record.
Both candidates were infinitely better than their counterparts. Both were maligned and silenced by the old media. Were it not for citizen reporters, it’s likely neither would have had the success they had.
Yes, both lost their bids. Yet both inspired their supporters and encouraged people to hope that they could wrest back control of politics. As Ron Paul often said during his campaign stops: “Freedom is popular.”
In the same period, “We are Change” was combating the establishment narrative on war, posting YouTube videos, their members confronting Neo-conservatives such as Norman Podhoretz, who spent a lot of his time trying to convince the public that the US should bomb brown people to make it a safer place. Not highlighted in his rhetoric were the increased profits of the Military Industrial Complex that would ensue from such policy.
Founded by Luke Rudkowski (@Lukewearechange), the organization gained fame for its hard hitting citizen journalism. It wasn’t the only organization which did so, but it did inspire many to engage.
Citizen reporting could actually advance civilization.
In 2009, when the first photo of Captain Sully’s miraculous landing in the Hudson river appeared on Twitter, a blogger at the Los Angeles Times was excited that citizen journalists and Twitter’s platform could change news reporting.
This may be among the most striking instances yet of instant citizen reporting, a trend that was visible in the Mumbai terror attacks and has come to use the micro-blogging service Twitter as its main conduit for hyperfast transmission of info-snippets and photographs. In this case, it was possible through the iPhone, an all-in-one communications device that can capture and send images in no time. LA Times Blog - JAN. 15, 2009
The old media had long been tepid regarding the citizen press. For its advocates, citizen reporters were anathemas. Competition. They don’t have credentials! They didn’t go to the right schools! They haven’t been trained! Old tropes. Thomas Paine and The Anti-Federalists set the standard for both a citizen press and a legitimate need for anonymity.
Old media distrusted internet savvy commoners immediately after the internet launched. In 1996, after facing censorship on the CompuServe forums, a man named Jim Robinson founded an internet forum called Free Republic. He wrote the software himself, disgusted that so many of his friends had been censored for posting articles critical of the Clintons. His forum allowed users to republish news articles in their entirety and gave its users the opportunity to comment, rebut and disparage the articles’ writers and publishers.
As a result, the Washington Post sued Free Republic over copyright violations. It seemed a pretty transparent attempt to quash dissent, something reserved for other “accredited” media outlets. How dare the the masses criticize us! The Post won their case yet Free Republic survived.
As self-styled journalists and bloggers continued to expand their reach, the old media repeated a mantra that media criticism and lay-journalists were a threat. In 2006, the UK’s “We the Media Conference” was convened to discuss the dilemma of citizen journalism as public trust in public media eroded.
In all MSM seems to have an ambivalent relationship with citizen media - at once trying to co-opt it and at the same time trying not to be bypassed by it. - Mike Butcher
In 2012, a paper was published that examined the role of the citizen journalist and its possibly dangerous effect on the field of journalism. It’s interesting that journalism is treated as a sort of protected occupation which needs to be preserved for media outlets that are deemed legitimate.
Scholars have suggested that journalists and audiences should strive to work together to increase the accountability, transparency and credibility of journalism (Hayes et al., 2007; Lowrey, 2006; Singer, 2007) and that research should examine the role of media self-criticism in sustaining such a relationship with audiences (Haas, 2006). The number of venues devoted to media criticism has grown rapidly since the late 1990’s, and reports on external threats to journalism are common. But little is known about whether and how journalists look inward to examine concerns arising from commercial pressure, organizational pressure and reporting conventions. ‘Since news media owners and advertisers stand to gain little, if at all, from such introspection, and the norm of objectivity serves to preclude it, it is likely that scholars will find little evidence of genuine news media self-criticism’ (Haas, 2006: 350). Meta-coverage of journalism is likely to be aimed at appeasing the public, avoiding any external regulation, and examining ‘the gradual erosion of the cultural authority of mainstream journalism’ (Haas, 2006: 351) in light of the rise of the internet, citizen journalism and reporting scandals.
It had become a “thing” to raise the alarm bells. What happens when (anonymous) writers call into question old media tactics and sloppy journalism? What if they’re just “bloggers” and not “real” journalists? Chaos!
The government has never liked the citizen press.
One particular incident in Austin Texas gave people a tremendous example of how a citizen press could free its brethren from the clutches of a corrupt government and hold its agents accountable.
An Iraq War Veteran and West Point Graduate, Antonio Buehler, was arrested on New Year’s eve, 2012, for vocally objecting as a police officer assaulted a woman. She was a passenger in the car of another woman being investigated for DUI.
Police approached Buehler and arrested him, later claiming that he’d spit on an officer to justify the arrest. The officers were wearing body cams but that footage was reluctantly, if ever, released. After putting out a plea to the public, it was discovered that a person had video taped the incident between Buehler and the police from across the street.
The alleged spitting incident was absent in the citizen’s recorded exchange. Two years later, a jury acquitted Antonio of all charges. The citizen reporter had saved the day.
Buehler started an organization dedicated to filming the actions of Austin PD. He called it “The Peaceful Streets Project.” They even purchased cameras and handed them out to volunteers. It stirred up a hornets nest but shed a light on the behavior of Austin PD.
Cop Watch out of New Hampshire was another organization formed to film, document and discover, through records requests, police misconduct.
Since its establishment, another category of citizen press, “first amendment auditors,” has exploded.
The police have historically responded poorly to these auditors, based on what one can see in videos uploaded to their YouTube channels. It is true that some of these auditors are seeking to provoke public officials into embarrassing themselves. Some are confrontational and rude. All too often, public servants react badly, making a mockery of their oaths.
One particular auditor in Long Island, New York, has been very effective while toning down the vitriol. Sean Reyes (Long Island Audit) has been filming his interactions with public employees and police for a relatively short amount of time.
His demeanor is cordial and respectful, setting him apart from more bombastic creators. In spite of this, the treatment he has occasionally received from public officials has been breathtaking. With the help of his viewers, some police officers have learned of their errors the hard way, receiving disciplinary action through internal investigations, and lawsuits.
In many areas around the country, the audits are attacked and maligned. Many police chiefs who have commented on first amendment audits degrade the auditors and cite vague claims that they endanger the police.
In an unprecedented move, The Hubbard Police department on Long Island reached out to Sean and invited him to speak at a regular training event. This is a spectacular development, one that could save police departments and the public a great deal of time and money were they to copy it.
Citizen reporters can make a world of difference.
Something has happened between the time that the old media began whining about it’s plummeting credibility in the 90’s and now. Obviously the old media was upset but so were many government entities, whose sole legitimate purpose morphed from protecting individual rights to protecting corporations. The old media has had such a cozy relationship with governments around the world, that it would be uncomfortable for them indeed if citizens were to disrupt it.
Another key to the near universal malignment of citizen voices was the reversal in 2012 of a decades-old policy which prevented the US government’s broadcasting network from publishing propaganda domestically. (Why does the US government have a broadcasting network anyway?)
The reversal seems to mark a real shift. It’s fashionable to think that old media collusion with the government has been a recent development but it’s probably as old as there has been a media.
For instance, the “sinking” of the U.S.S. Maine. The incident has been highlighted as the impetus for the Spanish-American War. It was not a sinking by an enemy but suicide by mishap. It was this famous bit of “Yellow Journalism” which raised public support for US military intervention in Cuba and the Philippines.
The old media defends its own even when the truth is too obvious to challenge. The History Channel published an article attempting to rehabilitate the press’s role in that war but the author erected a straw man. The paper established by Randolph Hurst didn’t “cause” the Spanish American War he says. Yet, The lies perpetuated in “New York American” about this incident were not intended to cause a war but to persuade American readers to support US intervention. It worked beautifully.
The Gulf of Tonkin incident was the excuse used by Lyndon B. Johnson and Congress to invoke the largest escalation of the Viet Nam war. Thanks to the old media and the President, the American public had no idea that nothing legitimately threatening actually happened and thus there was no justification for the following escalation.
These two old media narratives alone resulted in thousands killed in unjustified and unnecessary wars. There isn’t enough paper or gigabytes to list the lies they’ve promulgated to promote wars, riots and hysteria in their quest for profits and influence.
With the advent of social media, the potential of the citizen press exploded. So did the panic of that old couple, government and old media.
Anything that anyone posted online that contradicted the old media’s representations of their partner, big government, was suspect. Can’t be trusted. Misinformation.
Disinformation. Danger Will Robinson! If the big news outlets die off, who will toss softball questions during press briefings and interviews?
With the advent of the web browser, anyone with a keyboard, educated or not, could publish conspiracy theories, criticisms of the old media, their so-called journalists, and even, gasp! direct refutation of a particular government official’s misstatements.
And, their words or videos or audio might even surpass the reach of the old media by going “viral.” Just ask Joe Rogan, who has more viewers and listeners than most American old media outlets combined. How dare he…
The saga of Julian Assange and Wiki Leaks is another important milestone in establishing the legitimacy of a free press. The government is so angry with his exposure of their misconduct, they’d happily murder him to shut him up.
Something has to be done!
Enter the Covid-19 Pandemic, an event that spanned the globe and exposed government’s collusion with one of the most protected industries on the planet. The Pandemic was an event where censorship was sorely needed - by the government - “to save lives.”
The most logical platforms for that censorship were social media companies like Facebook, Twitter and YouTube. This necessity was in a sense exposing how old media’s reputations had fallen into disrepair.
People were turning to social media for information rather than old media outlets. The same outlets that had blamed Russia for their favored candidate losing the 2016 US Presidential election. An old media guilty of a list of lies going back too far to pinpoint and too long to count.
So something drastic was done. The old media, in collusion with government, other corporations and social media companies, decided to fight back. Bring in the “fact checkers,” or “The Ministry of Truth,” as Orwell once described state-sponsored censorship.
Greenwald himself is a pretty good example of an independent journalist who has made his reputation exposing government misbehavior. It was Greenwald who helped to break the Edward Snowden story, Snowden being himself one of the greatest citizen reporters in history, in the tradition of the aforementioned Mike Gravel.
Before any old media outlet reported that censorship was occurring, or if it was, that it was completely necessary to preserve democracy, citizen press was on to the game. YouTube removed display of down votes on the platform to favor “official” media outlets (or perhaps unpopular government officials) who were being pummeled by the plebes. This was instantly reported by independent voices.
Facebook, LinkedIn and Twitter were banning users, posting phony fact-check warnings on individual posts and staffing their moderation teams with employees willing and ready to comply with virtually any complaint by government or old media representatives. The official narrative was to be preserved at all costs!
And that doesn’t include the practice of shadow banning which has been used against many social media accounts critical of government actions. Not just about Covid narratives but also government misconduct in many different areas. Those involved with the prosecution of Keith Raniere, who tried to expose FBI evidence tampering saw their reach dismantled.
Nobody knew the extent of how bad all of this was behind the scenes. Yet, it had been escalating for years. People who were not left-leaning creators were well aware of how they had been censored, long before The Pandemic. They were mocked for pointing out that it was happening.
Enter Elon Musk.
Claiming he was saving citizen journalism, and thus the world, he bought Twitter and wrestled it from a screaming and kicking executive team who, likely, were more than a little concerned that their bad behavior might see daylight.
Indeed, it has been revealed that internally Twitter was staffed by progressives willing to act on any suggestion offered by government or old media personalities in keeping the platform “safe for democracy.”
Worse than that, they were taking orders from Biden campaign officials who some say were attempting to influence the outcome of the 2020 elections. And that indictment is one that ought to bring howls of laughter rather than outrage. Isn’t every candidate running for office attempting to influence the outcome in his favor?
Yet, there is a line. The one that the Biden campaign may have crossed was by failing to report this massive amount of censorship favoring its position, including the suppression of the Hunter Biden laptop story, as “in-kind” campaign contributions.” It would likely be difficult to place a value on the contributions. Though, if there was no value though, why seek the favors?
Someone official should look into that. Quite unlikely that they will.
The old media and progressives in government have been Elon’s most shrill critics. Yet Elon kept his promise of exposing the collusion between government, media, and Twitter’s former staff. The document dumps have been entertaining to say the least.
The world’s richest man has himself become a citizen journalist.
Critics are screaming that a billionaire shouldn’t be in control of a social media company. They point to Elon as the prime, dangerous example that might be worse than nuclear war. Perhaps they haven’t pushed their rhetoric that far. It’s not implausible that they will if Musk keeps exposing the bad behavior of old media, governments and politically protected corporations.
Ironically, or hypocritically if you prefer, government and old media criticism from the progressive viewpoint is directed only at voices labeled as right wing. Mark Zuckerberg, Patrick Soon-Shiong, Laurene Powell Jobs - and many others - get a pass. The publications they own are of the correct political incline.
Judging by critics’ silence on the matter of particular billionaires owning media companies, it is never dangerous when a leftangled billionaire purchases a media company. It’s only bad when the billionaire actually cares about giving voice to the little guy.
And isn’t it the intersection of social media and independent voices where the value becomes apparent? Social media is a place where the masses can access and determine which voices they trust and thus, share their work. If it weren’t so potentially beneficial, why would it be so targeted by censors?
When Musk first offered his views that speech ought to be more open and free on Twitter, the cause for skepticism was valid. “Here’s a billionaire who talks a good game but will he deliver?” some may have asked. Coincidentally, it might be hard to quote a billionaire from history who claimed free speech was a noble idea worth defending.
Given the massive increase in state-sponsored and corporate-enforced censorship, this particular billionaire might literally have saved the citizen free press. Time will tell.
I hadn't heard but that sounds interesting. Makes sense. The bots are interesting to. Seems they were designed to increase arguments and drive up trafficking but also provide fake follow numbers. I wonder how things will look in a few months.