YouTube just announced their Citizen News “channel”. Its supposed to demo some of the best citizen journalism on their site. In this intro video they featured The “Bad Ass” Uptake! with a small amount of my video! Go 1 minute and 26 seconds into the vid and you’ll see Kirk Ross of The Carrboro Citizen. Its part of my video of the Obama/Super Chunk/Arcade Fire rally I shot and edited for The Uptake!
Gota say I’m jazzed to be small time Internet famous if only for a few seconds. To me this is MUCH bigger than being on TV. (thanks to @podcastmama for sharing this news with me via Twitter.)
I remain skeptical about the future of citizen journalism. Now that its mainstream like ReadWriteWeb is blogging about… when will it be co-opted? Has it already? Remember underground music called Indy Rock? When it was co-opted by record labels they destroyed its cool in record time.
Much more is at stake here than cool. The past seven years have told us what happens when journalistic integrity and good values get bought by war mongers more interested in profit than human life.
Sorry to harsh yer mellow. I’m still excited that creative people like me can share our labor of love with the world. All without the expense that broadcast corporations shoulder. Citizen content is king! 🙂
Brian C. Russell 