We all know journalism is in trouble. You now have to pay to read news off many websites. Magazines all over are scrambling for readership, employing shocking tactics to force the readership to spike. Television news does the same thing, seeking sensationalizing existing stories and searching for human interest stories for entertainment.
I don't have too much of an issue with this; it's your right to publish it and my right to unsubscribe or change the channel. What I do have a problem with, however, is real news not being reported. On June 26th, I was alerted via Twitter and Tumblr that Wendy Davis, a Democratic Texas state senator, was going to attempt to filibuster an anti-abortion bill called sb5 for 13 hours to prevent it from going into law. She was not allowed to sit, lean on anything, drink water, or go to the bathroom. She had to talk strictly about the bill. If she could talk the whole day, then the senate would close the session at midnight without a chance to vote on the bill. I googled to check what channel it would be on and...it wasn't. It was only available on YouTube livestream. No major network gave coverage of the event, even as the filibuster wore on and as many as 178,000 people were tuned into the livestream.
Sen. Davis spoke for about 11 hours before she was accused of going off topic. Much like baseball, in filibusters it's 3 strikes and you're out. Two strikes were given because she was allegedly off topic, and one because someone helped her put her back brace. However, her fellow senators picked up the slack. They argued on her behalf for a very long time, passionately pursuing the case. The entire time, protestors could be heard in and around the Texas capitol building. Ten minutes to midnight, Sen. Leticia Van Putte, who had been trying to get the attention of the other senators, asked, "At what point does a female senator raise her voice or hand to be recognized over a male colleague?" The protestors in the gallery cheered, nearly blowing the laptop speakers of 178,000 people. They continued to cheer for the remainder of the day. It was a moment I was proud to witness.
However, at what was later determined to be 12:03 AM, the Republican senators took a vote and declared the law passed. Everyone was confused; the day was over, didn't we win? There was frantic debate happening in the form of youtube comments. Still, there was no major news network to help the viewers out, which became painfully apparent when the youtube stream was cut off. 178,000 people were left in the dark. Then @ChristopherDiDo came to the rescue. A self-described "citizen journalist," Dido streamed everything from the capital building from his phone. On the stream, viewers were addressed by Planned Parenthood, and just a little while later, a triumphant Wendy Davis. The bill was pronounced dead. Without an extraordinary guy and his ordinary phone, no one outside of the capital building would have seen her face at that moment.
Even writing this, I have trouble finding good links to credible sites about that night. It's this strange hush of the media that compels people like Dido into the streets with their phones, taking the news for the people, by the people. This grassroots reporting becomes even more crucial in places like Egypt, Libya, Syria, etc., which have been in tumult and are often censored. Dedicated "citizen journalists," however, are on the rise. Unsatisfied by the media, Anonymous surfaced to do their own "hacktivist" reporting, exposing corruption and scandal.
What I'm wondering is, what happened to the mainstream media? Most media outlets are dependent on how many people consume their information. Therefore, the most profitable news outlet is the one that is going to please the most people. Generally, people nowadays are alarmingly politically and economically apathetic, so why should the media truly cover politics and economics? I'm not an expert by any means (although I did binge-watch The Newsroom), but it seems as if the media has lost its purpose. Freedom of the press is one of the fundamental rights in this country, and it is so fundamental because the Founders believed that a strong, free press would hold America and its government accountable for its actions.
If the mainstream media isn't going to accomplish that, then of course citizen journalism will take over. I am very concerned about the political apathy among the population at the moment (as all intelligent people should be), and thankfully so are others. Yes, citizen journalism is flawed and sources are often incorrect. Yes, sb5 would only affect Texas, but it marks a newly aggressive era of abortion debate nationally. When that's not covered when I turn on my TV and Kim Kardashian's baby name is, I'm going to put my faith in the people, not the networks.
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