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190th Street Subway Station ( A Train ) (Photo by angelindiskies)
How the Occupy Movement has transformed American media
For almost the past three months, the New York Times has been outdone. The Washington Post has been outshined. The Dallas Morning News has been surpassed. Our American media system has not been disposed of, but it is evolving right before our eyes.
As the Occupy Movement unfolds, news carriers are no longer just trained journalists sitting behind a desk with a press badge hanging around their neck. It is the person with a cell phone who is getting the story out first. It is the person with a flip camera livestreaming to nearly 25,000 people at one time. The bystander live tweeting an event that happened one minute before is now a crucial element in the media system. The movement has ushered in a new era of citizen journalism.
Taking the green out of news
As the first generation of social media users, our peers have come to make up the media system. While there are still flaws to this method of news (false information instantly disseminated by the thousands), at the very least, American media is now back in the people’s hands. It is no longer completely owned by corporate giants.
Before this shift, 90 percent of American media was owned by six companies. ABC is owned by Disney, and therefore protects its owner’s agenda. Likewise, Time Warner owns CBS, which defends Time Warner’s interests. New citizen journalists have tweaked the idea of media agenda setting by becoming part of the media and shining light on the movement’s own issues that mainstream media outlets initially ignored.
Who protects the interests of the tweeter or the blogger? These grassroots journalism efforts are the purest form of giving a voice to the voiceless. Because livestream viewers get the latest in Occupy news from a man named Tim with a camera phone and not a man whose salary is paid by General Electric (who owns NBC and Comcast, among others), they can rest assured it’s merely a stream of what is happening, without any corporate bias or filter.
Journalists rethink their role
While citizen journalists have taken media blackouts in cities, such as Oakland and New York City, as an opportunity to take the media back into the people’s hands, classically trained journalists are developing new ideas on how to cover the news. When credentialed journalists were thrown out of Zuccotti Park the night of its first police raid on November 15, they took to Twitter to report the blackout, marking each update with a “media blackout” hashtag.
Journalists have witnessed vulnerability and government censoring through these blackouts firsthand, a clear violation of the media’s oh-so dear First Amendment right of freedom of the press. These incidents of censorship ground journalists in realizing the amendment’s vital role in this movement. Once their own voice was taken away, it was time to take it back with a vengeance through mobilization efforts via social networking and blogging.
This media evolution that’s reducing emphasis on mainstream media and encouraging grassroots journalism has sprouted a new era of news coverage. The people have occupied the American media to represent the movement more accurately without corporate owners’ interests seeping onto its front pages and headlines. While traditional journalism hasn’t been lost, citizen journalists sure are giving it a run for its money.
an extremely well-written piece. JK, I wrote it. Follow thepeoplesrecord ^^
Veto! Veto! Veto! Reblog!
Christian L. Aviance (@angelindiskies) has shared a Tweet with you:
“angelindiskies: @BarackObama @joebiden #Veto the National Defense Authorization Act of 2012! #billofrights #nwo #GOPagenda #constitution #ows #politics #RT” –http://twitter.com/angelindiskies/status/144635122296176640
One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others of the Day: Hint: It’s the one with the cover story about how it’s completely okay, if not beneficial, to feel unease about future uncertainties, as opposed to, say, riot in the streets until sh*t gets done.
Sadly, this is a fairly common occurrence.
[@ggreenwald.]
#OccupyBlackFriday #OWS @occupytogether
via Carole Nickerson
BEAUTIFUL. projection of 99% onto the (hideous) verizon building. right now.
artist unknown, photo by nick pinto via twitter (i think)
Former Philadelphia Police Captain Ray Lewis Joins With Occupy Wall Street Protesters
Highlights of Interview with Captain Lewis (click here for full article and video):
“You should, by law, only use force to protect someone’s life or to protect them from being bodily injured OK? If you’re not protecting somebody’s life or protecting them from bodily injury, there’s no need to use force. And the number one thing that they always have in their favor that they seldom use is negotiation–continue to talk, and talk and talk to people. You have nothing to lose by that,” Mr Lewis said. “This bullrush–what happened last night is totally uncalled for when they did not use negotiation long enough.”
“They complained about the park being dirty. Here they are worrying about dirty parks when people are starving to death, where people are freezing, where people are sleeping in subways and they’re concerned about a dirty park. That’s obnoxious, it’s arrogant, it’s ignorant, it’s disgusting,” Mr. Lewis said.
“They’re trying to get me arrested and I may disappear OK?” Mr. Lewis said. “As soon as I’m let out of jail, I’ll be right back here and they’ll have to arrest me again.” [Btw, he’s just been reported arrested. here. - Ari]
Mr. Lewis clearly doesn’t think the NYPD likes him, but he told the protesters he doesn’t think cops are their enemy. “All the cops are, they’re just workers for the one percent and they don’t even realize they’re being exploited,” Mr. Lewis said.
#OccupySeattle: Octogenarian activist Dorli Rainey on being pepper-sprayed by Seattle police, importance of activism
Eighty-four-year-old activist Dorli Rainey tells Keith about her experience getting pepper-sprayed by the police during an Occupy Seattle demonstration and the need to take action and spread the word of the Occupy movement. She cites the advice of the late Catholic nun and activist Jackie Hudson to “take one more step out of your comfort zone” as an inspiration, saying, “It would be so easy to say, ‘Well I’m going to retire, I’m going to sit around, watch television or eat bonbons,’ but somebody’s got to keep ’em awake and let ’em know what is really going on in this world.”