Tag Archives: electronic_frontier_foundation

CitizenWill, CivilLiberties, Community, Ruminations

Fish, Fowl, Eyeballs, Journalist: None of the above?

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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
Support Bloggers' Rights!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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CitizenWill, CivilLiberties, Community, Government, Media, Ruminations, Technology

Greensboro’s Chief Problem: Transparency in the Hands of the Blogsphere

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Via Ed Cone, the consultant’s report (RMA) I posted on earlier is in the wild. An anonymously redacted and posted version is available on Greensboro101.

Guarino has a nice precis of the report – says that the report is “remarkable because of its relatively narrow scope”.

Now, the big question, at least for blogactivists: will Greensboro101 need the services of the Electronic Frontier Foundation?

CitizenWill, CivilLiberties, Community, Government, Ruminations

Greensboro’s Chief Problem: Transparency?

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One of the more interesting aspects of Greensboro’s Chief Wray debacle involves a report (the RMA) prepared by outside consultants for internal consumption by Greensboro’s leadership. Questions swirl around both the legality of releasing the full report on the conditions leading to Wray’s firing and the public necessity of those revelations.

A number of GSO bloggers, current ‘blogger and former Council candidate Dave Hoggard for instance, have called for a redacted version to be released. As the Hogg points out,

After reading the whole thing I’m convinced our City Council should call a meeting and vote to release at least the first 31 pages of the report (Section 1).   From my non-legal view, that section of the report confirms Bledsoe’s Rhino reported investigations and presents all of the justification needed for the public to understand why David Wray is no longer employed as our Chief of Police.

Others, like Greensboro’s newest ‘blogger (but longtime commenter), The Conservative Alternative, question the assertions that legal action can and will be taken against GSO ‘bloggers publishing the report “in toto”. The grounds for doing so, at least based on her/his analysis, seem pretty shaky.

My interest is more than academic. As a local citizen working on governance issues, the extent to which I can publish or provide documentation of governmental malfeasance hinges on the legal determinations at play in cases like those exposed by Greensboro’s RMA report.

This is one of the reasons I support the Electronic Frontier Foundation and their efforts to preserve and protect the online community’s First Amendment rights.