Public Radio Hour "Citizen Journalist"

From the studios of 89.3 Huntsville Public Radio, I'm Brett Tannahill. And I'm Katie Gannaway. This is the Public Radio Hour, our weekly spotlight on special programs and homemade radio features. The power of storytelling is an amazing force. It is the truth that any person, anywhere, can potentially tell a story that changes the world around them for better or worse. Enhanced that raw wild power with the capabilities of a smartphone, and faster than we can keep out, America and the world are seeing the results unfiltered and in real time. Well, you got him down, man. That is really nice, man. This rise of citizen journalism is bringing to light the sometimes violent consequences of unarmed people of color interacting with law enforcement. On June 1st and 3rd, 2020, in downtown Huntsville, Alabama, protesters were rallying to oppose racial inequality. And more specifically at that moment, for the death of George Floyd, who was recorded on video, faced down in the street with a white police officer's knee

pressing him down by the neck until he lost consciousness and later died, since then more deaths. In downtown Huntsville on June 3rd, following the conclusion of a peaceful permitted protest in a nearby park, organized by the local NAACP, a group of people gathered and walked toward the courthouse to bear witness for their fellow residents against racial injustice and inequity. Eric Edwards went to the protest, searching for a sense of unity and understanding, and to document what was happening. Police call for the crowd to disperse, but it doesn't work. Those gathered at the foot of the courthouse suddenly found themselves surrounded by ranks of armed and armored law enforcement. The Huntsville Police Citizens Advisory Council is currently reviewing hundreds,

that is hundreds, of hours of raw cell phone footage, pictures and other evidence gathered by those who witnessed the events. They've also hosted public forums and continued to accept public comment, and that's what we're talking about this hour. Citizen journalism, intentional and incidental, and how its resonant effect changes communities. Later this hour, we'll talk with media historian Dr. Butler King and citizen journalists J.Q. Ellis and Rita Berkolder. We'll also see the protests through the lens of photojournalist Aaron Sarat, but first a reunion and a first meeting all wrapped into one. You've been hearing audio gathered during a live stream on June 3rd, and at one point in the video, Eric and other witnesses are staggering away from the gas cloud back toward Big Spring Park Keys, where he stumbled across a kind stranger on the outskirts, Andrew Crosby, a local music teacher and Marine Corps veteran who was helping provide first aid and instructions to Eric

and others. Andrew and Eric met formally for the first time at the WLRH studios with Katie. Here's their conversation. My objective initially was to be a part of history. I didn't want this to happen and I'd not be there to see it. I got there, there was speeches, there was some stuff happened, even down there when it was beautiful. There was no altercations, there was no friction, there was no police presence. What my friends called me, Sherrell Powers called me, and she said, are you going to be at the protest? I was like, I'm leaving. She's like, no, there's a protest in front of the courthouse. I was like, oh, let me get my battery pack and go back up. So I walk back from the front of the park, back around the park, up to stairs, and it is a sea of people in front of the courthouse. Everything is fine.

Andy, could you tell us why? I guess the same thing as Eric said. I just wanted to see this one to be there. I wanted to be in that sea of sentiment. I went to the protest that was on Monday, June 1st. I had a sign that said it could have been my student because I have students from all kinds of backgrounds. It's one of the things I love about some of the groups I work with. It's pretty wide variety of backgrounds and experiences. I did not want to be that teacher that didn't stick up for students or voice that opinion in that manner. And actually several of my students were in the crowd on both Monday and Wednesday. So it was just to be there, just to say, hey, man, this is something I support, this is something I agree with. And I think more people kind of look like me need to be that way. I was overjoyed that the over 50% of the people were people that were not of color, supporting people, marginalized people, you know, and the people, and I appreciate what you just said, like, just to be there. When you villainize a group, that group has to deal with

that on a level that you have no understanding. You don't understand what it's like to be in a place where you have only good intentions, but everything you do is question. That's what it's like to be black in America. I wonder when you came back, when your friend called you to come back, Eric, what was it like? What had changed from when you first got there to when you came back? It was definitely different. The energy you saw it. And you saw it was the energy was so much different. What do you like? It was really tense. You know, I came a little bit late because, you know, I was running like this live stream concert series for my church. I wasn't there for the prior event. I came kind of on the back side of things probably around 730 or so. And when I originally came up, I kind of came through Big Spring Park from the direction of the Von Braun Center and then kind of hung out in front of the cozy cow and just watch. And I could see,

I remember seeing what I thought were individuals on top of buildings. I think it was the city hall. And I really couldn't see the courthouse from that point. And then I remember seeing the drone. I just remember seeing just, you know, it felt tense. And so I just kind of weighed on the outskirts, but I could hear the noise in the sound from downtown. And then once I fell, it was safe to move forward. I was on my bike. So I ended up just riding kind of underneath that tree that's in the courtyard just to the south of the city of city hall building. And just up there was just tense. And then just noticed some like undercover officers moving through like guys and jeans and t-shirts and ball caps, but it looked like they're wearing like plate carriers, you know, and they had, you know, just the zip tie handcuffs on it just kind of moving through the crowd. It's like, this is weird. It was just. There was no aggression in this crowd. There was none. They were yelling out, say his name or say her name or we want, we want Joe just as no peace. There's no weapons. There was never a moment when someone pulled out of weapon. I filmed the entire thing. Like I was there there. There was nothing that was destroyed a burning

in Huntsville, Alabama. Nothing. Nothing. So why did we get to your gas? That hurt. It hurt. And it hurt really bad. I felt for you because when you came up to me because at that point, you know, I'd gone up to the right outside city hall and then came down that grassy hill towards Pan of you know, in Huntsville, museum art. That's our men. That's about what time was that? That I want to say was about after eight o'clock, maybe between eight. It's still light though. Yeah, but it was still like summer light, you know, so I want to say. I haven't 38 o'clock, maybe. Yeah, because we left it got dark. Yeah, yeah. But that was weird because like, you know, I've been in the ring corner. We've done, I know it. Tyrious feels like and I was just kind of like, oh, I'm out. Sky. You know what I'm saying? The only one. Let me tell you something about your gas. No, man. It creeps across your soul. It permeates every portion of your body. It is burning from the tip of my fingers to the top of my head. It is burning. It is burning in my eyes. It is burning in my nose. It is burning in my lungs. I would imagine a sense of relief for you,

Eric, because of the water just a little bit. I feel love. That was that was love. And I want to tell you, thank you. I appreciate you. I appreciate you. Like, like, I walk past a whole lot of people struggling to be alive, cursing. And then he's like, hey, man, can I help you? Can you need some water? Let me help you. I'm like, bro, thank you, bro. Like, for real. That was love. Man, it's my whole face is burning. Is that water? It's water to eat. Watch your phone. I want to get this. I just be careful not to rub. You say better? Yeah, thank you, man. Thanks, bro. Jesus, Jesus. And that's where we should be. And it shouldn't take me being tear gas. And it doesn't. It doesn't take that. It doesn't. But can we just have that part? Can we just have the part where we hand in water and one another? Can we go the other part?

That's all I'm saying. When I was down, I guess, as far as you know, what I felt was just like, I saw all these folks coming down the steps and from different directions. It just kind of had their bell rang. They didn't know how to process the situation. It, it, it, it was my perception. So I helped, I helped one. So I helped you. It's like, I remember I told you like, I sprayed, you know, to help spray that out of your eyes, told you to flip off your shirts, told you to clear your signs and say, and if you need it, you know, hospitals down that way. There's another lady I held with that as well. And just the lady especially just seemed stunned until and then somebody else asked, you know, hey, um, does she need help? And I was like, she might, if you just want to walk with her again, hospital emergency rooms that way. So I was just kind of like, this is a real tense situation. It's just how folks were approached me. It's like, I just want to do it. I can't make the situation better. And right now, I just at least go this way to safety. If I can help with the, you know, the tear gas and stuff, that, that's all I was kind of just, I didn't want to see somebody get hurt just because they, you know, lost their situational awareness or weren't able to handle that situation. I guess another thing is like what to change this whole

process of how it gets reviewed, you know, reviewed by the city. I had a meeting with Captain Dwayne McCarver. Um, I think it was on the 15th. Yeah, 15th of June, I, after in response to a video that he put up talking on Sonsville City website, just talking about, you know, what rolled down. And he invited me to come to his office on the 15th and we had a meeting and talked together. And it sounds like there were some dissenting voices within the police department as to how the, the planning of the response of this event went. And, and he said, and you saw the notes that I share with you is that some ideas lost out. And then he said to me, he wasn't involved in the final planning of the event. I think the other thing they would talk that would help toward this as well. If there are those dissenting of voices in the Huntsville Police Department in the Madison County Sheriff's Office in city government, those voices need to be louder, especially if they come from within the organizations that perpetuated this violence on their citizens. Because if they, because otherwise it seems like it's a united front that does, well, an injustice to justice, but plus doesn't balance out the fact that there are people within that organization that feel

differently from the people who made those calls to, to, to act in that way on that night. And I want to give you guys the opportunity to share one final thought today. I don't know, I'm still processing where I'm at on this. I, I will definitely say that I'm frustrated with the review process. I feel like a lot of stuff has been said. There could be more stuff that could be said to kind of get gain goodwill with the community, especially those who were there last night or not last night on June 3rd. Yeah, oh my gosh. I know we talk about some really vivid memories. I just, I just, I just wish the city and the police department would do more to make the process more transparent and gain goodwill with the people who were there. And I don't want your goodwill. I want you to be good. I'll second that. Thanks to Eric Edwards and Andrew Crosby for meeting with Katie Gannaway and sharing the

story of their experiences documenting the June 3rd protest in downtown Huntsville. We're talking about the rise of citizen journalism this hour from the studios of 89.3 Huntsville Public Radio. This is the public radio hour. We'll be right back. Many arts organizations are struggling as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. The Huntsville Ballet is no exception. Without help from the community are futures uncertain. We'll hear more from artistic director Phil Otto about what's going on with the ballet now and what you can do to help. That's Thursday morning at 7.45 during morning edition. If you like music like this or music like this, then get your hands on a freed local alien CD. We collect outstanding local music like that and release it in a CD compilation each year called local aliens and it's your last chance

to get a copy of the latest local alien CD. Phil out the request form on our website to get your free copy mailed straight to your door. More info is on the WLRH Facebook and Instagram pages, Supplies are limited so act fast. We're exploring the evolving role of citizen journalists in our vast media landscape. People sharing raw unfiltered perspectives using their phones and cameras and shining the light on stories untold by traditional media. Aaron Sarat went to both the June 1st and June 3rd protests with the goal of recording Huntsville history and to photograph the good moments. Even hoping to see an officer take a knee or march in solidarity of the anti-violence message. But once the tear gas was fired, Aaron knew the history he would witness was something quite different. He also describes himself as a documentarian and shared his story with Katie Gannaway. On June 1st, I feel no one really knew what to expect kind of going in. I don't think everyone knew how large it was going to be as far as the amount of people showing up.

And of course no one expected the police to kind of react the way they did. June 1st, it started off really nice with the march around the city blocks. And once it stopped in front of the courthouse, I feel like obviously the tension started to grow. I feel like the reaction that came out of the police on June 1st was a little more unexpected compared to June 3rd, just because a lot of the same people showed up on the 3rd that were there on the 1st. So people came prepared, not necessarily there to incite violence or anything like that, but the presence of the police department was a lot more involved on June 3rd. So when things started happening on June 3rd, like we kind of saw it coming, we didn't want that to happen, but the tension going into June 3rd was just completely different than how it felt on the 1st. The 1st, of course, people were angry

and upset. And you know, there's a few people that were pushing the boundaries of not necessarily like trying to start something, but like, hey, how far can I go with what I'm trying to say and what I'm trying to express before the police interact. June 3rd, I feel like people knew that it could happen and were, you know, still very angry by keeping a larger distance between the police department and, you know, getting the front line of protesters. I've seen it in a few places, but what I don't really hear about is what it felt like beforehand. Can you describe what that environment was like? June 3rd, I mean, the NAACP rally was amazing. It was powerful. I showed up with my camera. And as I was walking into Big Spring Park, you know, there's people asking that brought in cases of water and was like, please take a case of water and help pass it out. So, you know, I was going in to initially take photos and then, you know, of course, I want to do every part of Can. So, you know, it's been the first 20 minutes just

passing, you know, water balls around in this mass amount of people and everyone's there to support each other and just be there with one another. I mean, it was thousands of people. It was amazing. And at that point, I didn't realize that the march had been canceled. It was originally, you know, supposed to go trying to remember, yeah, it's about eight o'clock. And then I think it was only a few hours before is when they changed the time. So, a lot of people went into the march, not really knowing, you know, that had been canceled. You know, the first thing you see as soon as you get on the street is you see police officers in the parking decks above you looking down on you. So, immediately, it starts bringing back kind of that malevolent sense of kind of what's going to happen before anything even happens. And I was sure you had your camera ready. Oh, yeah.

Oh, yeah. I mean, as soon as I got rid of the water bottles, I mean, I was taking pictures. And I went into June 3rd, regardless of what happened on June 1st, because I mean, I was tear gased on June 1st, trying to get on my motorcycle, you know. But even so, like going into June 3rd, I didn't want to go there with the sole purpose of just capturing, you know, protesters. I actually had the intention to go there and try to find those moments of, you know, kindness and humanity between law enforcement and the protesters. Yeah. I really went in with a lot of hope to be able to capture that and kind of use my, you know, photography to bridge a gap of we're okay out here. Like, we just have to communicate. We have to work together. But unfortunately, I wasn't really able to find any moments to capture. It just the presence was just overwhelming because everywhere

you looked, you saw police officers and they talk about dispersion and everything like that, but there wasn't really a clear way to disperse. So, yeah. So, when things did escalate, how did you feel behind the camera versus how you might have felt without the camera in front of your face? I think being behind the camera gave me, you know, the confidence to be able to be a little bit more involved, be a little bit closer. Did you get any tear gas that night? Oh, yeah. So much. So much. So, that was kind of one thing I was going to talk about, too, is, you know, I had, you know, goggles and everything, but, you know, a sweat and everything. You start, you kind of forget every once in a while and you go up and you wipe your eyes and so many times, there would be gas in my eyes. And when things started really popping off with, you know, flashbangs and everything, there was moments where I was just kind of pointing my camera and hoping for the best. So, you couldn't see. Right. Right. Sort of blindly shooting.

Right. What was in front of you? And of course, you know, when, you know, I finally was able to look at the pictures. There was, there was a lot of things that, I don't even remember seeing with my own eyes. You have some powerful images there, yeah. Thank you. Thank you. It's something I'm proud to have captured, but something that, you know, I'm not happy to photograph. One photo that really stood out to me is the one where it's a woman who has goggles on and there is a man who's holding her up. She looks terrified and he has sort of a vest on that says security across the chest. There is tear gas in the back on a huge cloud of tear gas and a wall of police. So, that one really stuck with me. I wonder for you, which one, looking back really invoked it so much emotion in you? Honestly, I'd have to say the same one. I just remember her being on the ground. And I can't quite remember what exactly happened. I believe she was, you know, a gas. There was also a ton of people around that area that just kind of

hit with rubber bullets. But I remember just hearing flashbangs going off and, you know, the police is getting closer and closer and closer. And keep in mind, we had just seen 30 or 50 Alabama State troopers roll in. I mean, as a war zone, that's what it felt like. And that security officer, essentially two security officers that were there for, you know, the protesters were just amazing. Everywhere he turned, they were helping. I saw them picking people up, just moving people out of danger. And that photo, especially just her face, I mean, I was just pure dread and just being scared. So, what changes for you when you step behind the lens? What is different about that experience to you? I've always been a documentarian at heart. No matter what out do even if it's just hanging out with my friends, you know. What do you like to photograph?

So I shoot a lot of 35 millimeter film, primarily. So really just kind of everyday things. I like to go, I travel quite a bit, landscapes, all that stuff. But documentarian has always been kind of a passion. So these moments when I have the opportunity to capture history, I just, it inspires me to be more involved. Because I don't want people to think that I'm just there to get photos for my own purpose. These photos, you know, are about capturing history and bringing attention to, you know, movements and change. I don't want everyone to make money off these photos. If I chose to make money off of injustice, you know, then just take a camera away from me. That's not the point of it. I'd like to know what sort of message you hope that people take away when they see the photos that you took that night. I hope that, you know, people see that we're going through the largest human rights movement in history. It's not just here in Alabama. It's all over all over

the world. You know, I want people to know that injustice is real and that it's not just happening to the people that say on TV, it's happening to our citizens, our neighbors, our communities. It's not just happening to low-income families or people of minorities is happening to everyone. And we have to communicate. We have to find a way to communicate and come together and hold our leadership accountable. Because our leadership, the ones that we put in office are the ones that are making the decisions that happen on June 3rd. And those are the people that we need to hold a accountable. That was photojournalist and documentarian Aaron Sarat, one of Huntsville's citizen journalists who were talking with about their perspectives of a set of encounters between peaceful protesters and anti-riot security around the Madison County Courthouse June 1st and 3rd, 2020.

Aaron shared some of his photographs, which you can find on the WLRH YouTube page, and find links to all sorts of other resources on the Public Radio Hour program page at WLRH.org. From the studios of 89.3 Huntsville Public Radio, this is the Public Radio Hour, the power of storytelling set free by a desire for everyday citizens to document and share things happening in their communities. We'll wrap up our show about citizen journalists with a roundtable discussion. And you can also join the conversation on the WLRH Facebook page. Joining the discussion is Rita Burgholder, a member of a small group of local Huntsville residents by the name of citizen journalists. Some of you may have seen her testimony to the Huntsville Police Citizens Advisory Council, 12,000 views and counting. JQ Ellis is a Huntsville entrepreneur, social media influencer, and self-described super producer. You may have also heard JQ here on WLRH

through our community newsroom and as a producer for Valley Sounds. I sat down with Rita and JQ and with Dr. Butler Cain. Butler is a media historian and chair of the University of North Alabama Communications Department. Butler and I first met 20 years ago when he was my former news director at Alabama Public Radio in Tuscaloosa. Our conversation begins as we think about the question what does it mean to perform journalism and what happens when unfiltered news hits social media. We start with Rita. I hadn't necessarily come out anticipating documenting but realized immediately that that was necessary for what was going on because I felt there were violations that had occurred and in the beginning I noticed there was very much a learning curve. I bought a body cam immediately. I took my camera out, I was filming video, photographic shots, and I realized I was commenting and dialoguing over the very footage that I needed to prove violations and it became immediately biased so it was completely unusable. So I kind of had to go back

and remember like what are the things that you have to do when you're trying to give the most objective unbiased reporting. As far as documentary style, one of them was be quiet. You know, let the scene speak for itself, let people speak for themselves. Are you picking and choosing scenes? Are you picking a thing and sticking with it and waiting for an event to unfold and happen? I think the difference in style between documenting and people with cell phones that are showing what's happening are like live stream for instance. Oftentimes people with live streams are distracted. It's a type of distracted filming. Oh, there's action over here. There's action over here. There's action over here. With documenting, I became very aware very quickly that everyone was filming the protesters and the protest. All eyes on them, right? No one was really consistently photographing law enforcement. So what I did was I began to photograph law enforcement and I

caught some really interesting things on the first and the third that were happening. Law enforcement is not used to being filmed. They don't like it when you film them because they're used to eyes being on the event that's unfolding. But I felt it was a critical moment that if someone wasn't watching the watchers, so to speak, then there was no way to prove if any violation were to occur or any breaking of the law constitutionally or otherwise. So my approach has been get very quiet, pick a scene and stick with it all the way through so that you have context, don't get distracted and something may not happen at all, which is a good thing. But if something does happen, it's important to capture it and be able to utilize that. JQ, you are a social media influencer and you're used to reaching out to people on social media for a variety of the things that you do. But you're also obviously a social media consumer and you were keeping up with the events that were going on. You may even have seen some of Rita's or some of the other

footage. As a social media consumer, what was your reaction and how did you, I guess, ingest the information that you were seeing coming from those events? JQ, I think it's important to remember that I am a social media influencer and a media, you know, and that's what we do is we share perspectives, different perspectives, different views to an audience that captures. So they don't get to see just how I see something. But more than likely, I'm showing them what I'm seeing. And that's what that's the difference in, you know, seeing and watching. So yes, consuming that media, we have so many other outlets to see, to make decisions based on what we get. However, the problem again lies in the social media has no control. And so we have so many diverse perspectives. It's hard because we're only getting the view

from one way versus like she said, documentary style, but we're piecing things together. We're piecing the video we got from Butler and the TV show we heard from Rita and then JQ put her best friends thing on there live while he was doing live, you know, and I was sitting in my home. So the experience again, I think, has to do with perspectives and that has to do with your audience. And right now, our audience is social media is actually the audience because people go to social media to find out to see it other than how the news puts it to us. One of the interesting things that we have going on today comes down to this matter of trusting the source and where the content is coming from. And that does not mean that say back in the day when you had the New York Times and the Washington Post and NBC News and like those types

were the only real big players, you know, on the national scene, you still might have people who don't trust them for whatever reason, which is fine. That's a personal choice. But in a sense, you could at least have an understanding of the process they were using and how they got the information that they were sharing with you. And these days, there are so many people who can put so many different things into your inbox or into your Twitter feed or wherever you might be consuming this information that it is very difficult for us to even begin to gauge if the topic is true or if someone has made it up or if it looks real, could it be Dr. Video? We don't know who's protecting us, who's helping us. There's just so much information coming to us every day. That is not being kept. There's no gatekeeper. It's all coming out as it wants. And it's so difficult for us to be able to figure out what we believe. So then we began to default toward the legacy media, some of us do. It's like, well, I'm going to trust the New York Times or I'm

going to trust CNN or whoever it might be, whatever the legacy programs might be. But then you have others who don't trust them because they're establishment so they would like to gravitate toward the things that they're not seeing the establishment share. I think that's really good. There's no filter. We don't have a specific system to say whose perspective is right or wrong. And that's where the social media part comes into it. That's where the citizen journalism comes in because now we are able to see so many different perspectives or so many different visuals or hear so many different renditions of the same story with the same outcome. Our media panel will talk more about the issue of trust in media or in many cases a lack of trust. Are the gatekeepers doing their jobs? From the studios of 89.3 Huntsville Public Radio, this is the Public Radio Hour. We'll be right back.

Next time on City Arts and Lectures, epidemiologist Larry Brilliant, whose work with the World Health Organization helped to eradicate smallpox and Buddhist teacher Jack Cornfield, reflect on past global health crises and discuss how to promote well-being in this and other uncertain times. That's next time on City Arts and Lectures on this public radio station. Thursday nights at 8 on 89.3 HD1 WLRH. From the studios of Huntsville Public Radio, this is the Public Radio Hour. And we're hearing the first hand accounts of people who attended protests on June 1st and 3rd to document a historic moment in their community and gotten more than they bargained for. The Huntsville Police Citizens Advisory Council is reviewing hundreds of hours of video, photos and other public documentation to see whether anti-riot tactics were deployed

correctly against non-violent protesters. Let's get back to our panel discussion with media historian Dr. Butler Cain and citizen journalists, JQ Ellis and Rita Berkhalder. And the details were that there were projectiles left in the street and I went around and picked them up. I also picked up protest signs that were covered in pepper spray, which I actually accidentally got secondhand pepper sprayed by a sign that was very unpleasant, but it was important to me to go in front of the committee and say, this is what a rubber bullet looks like. This is the size. This is the range that the manufacturer requires it to be shot within distance. And there is footage being sent to you that is available, that is showing that instead of shooting this bullet from 120 feet and bouncing it off of the pavement, there's footage showing these officers and sheriffs shooting directly at citizens' bodies above the suggested

range at 15 feet, which could have caused death or permanent injury, or other things that are not being said. Like, tear gas actually is an abortifation. It can cause a miscarriage. So you're shooting things into the citizenry that is showing up protesting according to their first amendment constitutional right. And you are actually putting the citizens at risk of death, loss of life, whether it be unborn or otherwise, by violating not only the manufacturer's regulations, but the Human Rights Commission, which is international, and violating local and national codes for those projectiles. So when I spoke to the committee, it was very important to me to take the emotion out of it, because both sides are vying for their side to win at this point, the conservative and the liberal. And here I am a citizen in the middle just saying, hey,

as an average citizen, our administration and our government and our law enforcement is responsible for protecting us and telling the truth. And if they're doing neither, it's problematic. You're listening to the public radio hour on 89.3 and Huntsville. We're joined by Rita Barcola, JQ Ellis and Dr. Butler Cain. And we're talking about citizen journalism, partly in relation to the police activity and protests in downtown Huntsville and early June. We've talked a good bit about credibility and the importance of truth and JQ and Rita, you also brought up another interesting point, Butler, that I would like you to comment on in terms of the emotions that are involved in this, the how the content has a particular emotional value to it. And it also elicits an emotional response from people. So Butler, let me ask you in terms of a professional journalism and a citizen journalism, how do the two of them handle emotional content?

Do they handle it in a different way? Are there some similarities? What do you think? You know, I think they can and just not to bore everybody completely, super brief history lesson. But it's generally accepted among media historians that the rise of sort of what we consider the objective professional journalism that we see today came along and mid to late 19th century with the rise of the Associated Press. And the idea was that coming out of these eras of journalism where it was highly partisan. We have the partisan era that was in the early part of the 1800s. We move into the penny press era and then we start seeing the professionalization of media, particularly newspapers at this time happen. And one of the reasons we got this sort of modern idea of objectivity and impartiality is because the Associated Press and other organizations that started

adopting this type of viewpoint figured out pretty quickly that they could sell more papers because there were more people who would buy something that's perceived to be straight down the middle as opposed to politically left or politically right or whatever it might be. And so there was a financial incentive to actually approach things from an impartial way. And so we still have that today. And that's particular for American media, but if you look over the British media you will see that newspapers have a very long history there of sticking to factual reporting and wanting to make sure that they're giving people really good information but having a particular lean whether it be left or right or whatever it might be. So we have a lot of different models. So I think with the term citizen journalism these folks folks who are who claim to be engaging they say what I'm doing is citizen journalism. Great. I tend to look at journalism as a process. And so one of the things I would ask them would be terrific you're doing citizen journalism. Tell me your process. What are you doing?

Are you are you doing specific things a specific way so that you can tell the audience precisely what it is you are doing and why you are doing it or you just throwing some words or video up on a website somewhere and just calling that journalism. To me if you're going to use the term journalism you're going to have to bring more to the table. You're going to have to have a process, you're going to have to have a plan and you're going to have to adhere to particular standards and accepted protocols that maybe folks who say they are doing a certain type of journalism don't do. And so that's where the rub is for me. I think that's just a word though. Like you said because again I consider myself a citizen journalism because I'm sharing information to my peeps from what I see. You know what I'm saying again. And so that's what journalism is. And so when we say citizen journalism then we try to put a title and a certain standard with a certain specific on it just like we do a professional journalism. But again I think

that when we use the title citizen journalism we're trying to say that there is a standard to the citizen that's doing the journalism. I do feel that there needs to be a systematic way to collect and present information. I think that it has to have integrity. I think that you have to try to take the emotion out of it. And this kind of speaks to the process. Right as much as you can. I very much respect that process. What I don't respect is having to kuto to the gate keepers that hold the process of reporting and being discriminated against or undermined as a person who's collecting very important footage and data simply because I don't hold a credential. I think the process actually helps. It helps the professional journalist, the citizen journalist, and it helps by protecting you really because anytime you get into a situation like that and maybe

it's even just people wanting to challenge what you are doing or the type of information that you're putting out. Because when you can be honest about your process and you can say well here's what I'm doing. Here's why I'm doing it. Here's how I'm doing it. Then that helps you build your credibility because you're being honest about what you're doing behind the scenes basically. And I think that helps a lot. Yeah that's important. That's the reason why I say we need citizen journalists. That's I think where the social media part comes in. It gives citizen journalists a platform to really show us people are consumers more than just one perspective of what's really happening. And you know I think it's important too to realize and to recognize that the first amendment does not differentiate between citizen journalist or professional journalists. The idea is that really and I've said this before to my students and colleagues that the first amendment really doesn't give us journalists any more protection than just citizens have. The first amendment is for

everybody. Journalists just happen to use it professionally because we need people to be doing their jobs as well. And so it's our job to collect information for you. It's your job to be the physician or to be the plumber or whatever it might be. And so anyone who goes out to record, produce anything like that at all, you have full first amendment protection just as anybody who works for any local TV station or radio station or newspaper has. And so sometimes folks I think tend to forget that. But the first amendment empowers all of us so that we can all do that. It doesn't matter if we're professional. We're employed professionally to do journalism or it's a hobby of ours. So one of the things that I am happy for with social media also equally unhappy for is the ability that people can film things and put them out for everyone to view. And it is no longer

just the press showing up to cherry pick a moment at an event at the most critical moment where the most hostile thing is happening with social media with cell phones. We can now see the before the during and the after. And I think it's very important to have a holistic view of that picture whereas before the gatekeepers only showed you the view that they wanted you to see. Thanks. We're talking with Dr. Butler Cain, Rita Barkholder and JQ Ellis. Thank you all for coming together and having this really fascinating conversation. I'm sure that we could keep going for probably another hour. We will put a longer version of this conversation online by itself. But to wrap up this conversation, Rita and JQ, we've asked you to come up with a couple of your own questions to ask Butler. I might be able to chime in as well. So which one of you would like to go first? So my question is do you think that journalists period whether they're citizenship or their

professional journalism? They should have the freedom of speech to present a story however they choose to present it as long as the facts are true. I happen to see a professional value in allowing journalists, whether they're a professional employer, citizen journalist or whatever it might be, to have the freedom to be able to go to a scene, talk to the people they need to talk to, you know, record whatever's going on. Let's just say if we're talking about event reporting. And come back and have no implicit or explicit pressure on them to present it a particular way. And I recognize that when you're talking about professional media, there are constraints on what you can do. Let's say if we're talking about local television news, that news director is not going

to give you more than a minute, a minute 15 to put that package together and that's all the time you have. We know obviously there's no way you can adequately cover something in that short amount of time. So within the structural constraints that professional journalism has to working within, I think that reporters should be free to cover things as they saw them and to use their own understanding, research, experiences that they bring to the table to be able to give the audience the most accurate as close to truthful depiction of that event as you can. You can never be 100% truthful. It's just not possible because we just cannot know. We just have our own limitations. And it's also important to know that accuracy and truth are not the same thing. And so it's important for the journalist to just be aware of what she or he is trying to put

together. They should always ask themselves, it should really be more of an internal struggle. I feel you should ask yourself, what am I missing here? Am I allowing some implicit biases to come in that I'm not recognizing? And I think that's the harder thing to do than to have somebody over your shoulder saying, no, take that out. No, don't do this. I tend to buck against that anyway. I have never liked that. And so that's why I have never really tried to do that with anybody I've ever worked with. You do have to edit and you might have disagreements on edits sometimes, but that's the nature of the professional process as well. Does that answer your question? That's good stuff. That's good stuff. Okay, Rita. Yeah, well, I guess I would say in reporting, I do have a bias, just like any individual definitely has a bias. And I work very hard to suppress that while trying to document things. You know, as far as citizen journalists, like I said, this group is in direct response to the

events on June 1st and 3rd. And mainly the reporting that I've done of those facts really has been to local administration through the Huntsville City Council or through the Huntsville Police Citizens Advisory Committee. That is kind of where I've been putting the information out. Now, it is in the public purvee because it is streamed or put on television in the internet in real time and also left there for people to see later. My question to you would be, you know, one of the reasons for me documenting this is to try to protect constitutional rights. As I've seen them violated. And I've found frustration in addressing the City Council. I've noticed that the Council has begun to censor citizen commentary, limit speaking, take time away from citizens that I feel have a right to speak regardless of what they're saying unless it's, you know, a threat, of course. And there's a lot of tone policing going on as well, which is interesting to me because I feel that any citizen at any time has the right to address

their local government with the words that they see fit as long as they are not threatening and that that should be recorded for public perusal. Do you feel that that type of behavior, censorship, limiting time, redacting complete statements by citizens is a violation of the First Amendment? So that makes my red flags go up. As you were sitting there telling us that, I was trying to think what would even be the justifications that they would try to to make to justify any of those actions. And I would have to admit there might be something somewhere in the city codes somewhere that someone will go see. This allows us to do that. And so I think I would answer this a couple of ways. Number one, from the journalistic standpoint, I would keep covering it. And your journalism is much more powerful and your ability to affect change in the public sphere has that much more impact and power behind it when you can

collect that data like you've been doing and then confront the people who are doing it with that information. And then also when you can collect voices from other people, it might be First Amendment experts or legal experts or something like that who say, hey, what you're doing is odd or this runs a file of the First Amendment. And so when you have all of these other voices coming in, what you are able to do is completely stick to the facts, present it even in a straightforward way. And simply by doing that, you are able to show folks that something might be a miss. And that sometimes places good pressure on public organizations to change their ways. And so I would look at it from from the journalistic standpoint that way. Keep doing that from a personal standpoint as far as the First Amendment goes, just I don't have any personal experience with any of the things you

have described, I haven't seen it or anything like that. But going on on what you would say, that would be one of the complaints that I would bring up not even as a journalist, but just as a citizen about it appears to me, I see these patterns. And based on what I know to be my constitutional rights with the First Amendment and the ability to speak in public forums, if you are allowing these people to speak, but not allowing those people to speak, that's a problem. Because then you have people who are acting on behalf of government choosing which speech they will allow to be presented to them and which ones they would not, instead of just leaving it open for anyone to say whatever they want. I would have less concern with the timing, if it's two minutes, but everybody gets two minutes, then you're not putting a restriction based on content. But if these people get two minutes, but these people get 20 seconds because of what they're saying and they're suddenly cut off, that's a problem. And what I would recommend to municipalities who are doing that would be to not do that and reconsider how you are conducting your meetings. Bollard, Rita,

JQ, thank you so much. Thank you. The power of storytelling can change entire communities. Generally, you can do it most anytime, most anywhere. Your constitutional right of freedom of speech protects you from any sort of interference, from any person or government agent. If you are documenting anything or anyone, you can reasonably see while standing in a public place. But also, there's common courtesy to remember, so please keep that in mind. We hope you enjoyed this episode on Citizen Journalism as part two of our ongoing series, The Hard Part, as we document protests in Huntsville and find ways to improve lines of communication between all parties involved. Find a host of links and other digital resources on the Public Radio Hour program page at WLRH.org. You'll also find a longer version of our media panel discussion and a video featuring some of Aaron Sarat's protest photos on the WLRH YouTube page. A huge thanks to all of our WLRH members

for helping create a platform where in-depth discussions and a diversity of viewpoints can be shared. We do appreciate it. And thanks to you for listening. From the WLRH Studios, this is The Public Radio Hour.