Citizen journalists to the rescue

Over at Jack Bogdanski’s excellent, provocative and popular bojack blog, Jack has posted a section of a speech given by Gary Imhoff, editor/blogger at the DCWatch web site in the nation’s capital.

No, the site doesn’t track the comings and goings of lobbyists and legislation. Instead it keeps an eye on the city, its government and its neighborhoods.

Imhoff's speech contains the following "new media" call for citizens to transform themselves into journalists and to submit their stories to DCWatch:

We try to convince reporters and their editors that they should cover the stories that are interesting and important to us. Occasionally, we succeed; more often we don't. But in our local neighborhood listservs and in themail, we are able to act as reporters ourselves. We escape the filters of ‘news judgment' that keeps a lot of important news out of our news outlets. We get to inform others directly, and in the end we all end up better informed.”

Jack offers his site as Portland’s place for amateur reporters to share news items. In fact, if you read the bojack site, you know it already does, with barbs added.

If you live in or around Hillsdale, I welcome neighborhood news from you for my on-line Hillsdale News. Write me at editor@hillsdalenews.org.

Meanwhile check out Jack’s post (and the dozens of comments to it) on how the right-wing has jumped on-board and has positioned itself to lead the Sam Adams recall effort. Jack, who favors the recall, thinks the right-wing involvement of celebrities like radio-talker Lars Larson could be the kiss of death for the recall initiative.