Citizen Will

My Nov. 4th Chapel Hill News column was kind of choppy this week. I guess one of the “nots” I can add to the list is a paragon of brevity. Some folks use the term “citizen journalist” to describe what I’m doing on CitizenWill – a description that hasn’t quite jelled into a term of art.

Whatever I’m doing, both the ACLU and Electronic Frontier Foundation are working hard to protect my right to do it, please consider
supporting Bloggers’ rights.

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I am not a journalist.

Sure, I’ve written guest columns for the Herald Sun, the Daily Tar Heel, and now, full circle, for the Chapel Hill News. But that does not make me a journalist.

Self-published, some of my online work falls under the rubric of “citizen journalist.” Yet that loosely applied classification carries little gravitas in the world of politics and governance.

My ruminations require primary research, occasional interviews, analysis – behaviors associated with trained journalists. But my posts, though sometimes grist for the news, lack the institutional news outlet imprimatur.

And, always, I bring my acknowledged point of view. Not crafted by publishers, editors, advertisers, media marketers — my interests and passion dictate my content.

At Greensboro’s recent unconference ConvergeSouth, professional journalists, online activists, performers and readers, discussed the current consequences of new media enterprises — the corrosive, even subversive, effects of the personal printing press on the venerable Fourth Estate – and speculated on what is yet to come.
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I like to keep it local on Concerned Citizen, but this report does have a local angle.

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