the rules are always changing. the way we tell the stories about our lives is constantly evolving.
this morning i read a story about a woman who has significantly affected the current US presidential race. 61 year-old Mayhill Fowler - a financially contributing supported of the Obama campaign - joined a volunteer journalistic programme that gave many ordinary “untrained” people an opportunity to report on the campaign. the programme, initiated by The Huffington Post, is called “Off the Bus” and was designed to give ordinary people an a voice.
So when Mayhill Flower got into a private fund-raiser and recorded Barak Obama speaking about the bitterness of certain American communities, she was placed in an awkward position. She was disappointed that he sounded like those people that buy into generalisations about certain communities. But she had also followed him around and covered his campaign out of her own pocket (with no allowance from the Huff Post) - motivated by a desire to see him become the next president. She knew that reporting what he had said would hurt his campaign. She sat on the story for 4 days reflecting on what she should do. Finally she published the report and news quickly spread.
Was it journalistic integrity that won out?
Are the ethical rules of journalism changing? (she didn’t announce herself as a “journalist” but then she also isn’t being paid, so one could argue that she’s just an ordinary person - an ordinary person with a laptop and a wireless internet connection… increasingly powerful tools to influence history it seems…)
Should journalists announce themselves so that politicians are aware who they are speaking to? Or, is this revolution of information and the ordinary person’s voice making politicians more honest?
the thing that most impacted me about the story was that she was not paid - not even for her costs. She travelled around and reported at great cost - all at her own expense.
What motivates a person to do that?
What makes you do what you do? Do you love what you do? (would you do it even if they stopped paying you?)