Grassroots Reporting Quotes

We have to be the media when media is silent

Speaking generally, people who are drawn to journalism are interested in what happens from the ground up less than they are from the top down.

I think because I came into journalism by way of the Black Panther Party - and not J-school or a corporate bourgeois institution - I tried to do news, writing and reporting that had social, political and racial content and context.

Al Jazeera should understand the societies, should understand the culture of the civilisation, should understand the dynamics of the societies, should be part of this understanding; and on the other level, Al Jazeera should concentrate on the margin rather than the centre. It means that Al Jazeera should be close to the public.

BE THE MEDIA is uplifting and empowering.

Citizen journalists can attend events traditional journalists are kept from - or have overlooked - or find and highlight the small but evocative story happening right next door. By tapping this resource, news sites can extend their reach and help redefine news gathering in the digital age.

Some blogs have become the best check on monopoly mainstream journalism, and they provide a surprisingly frequent source of initiative reporting.

The government is just you know, blowing the doors off the media. And not everywhere, and I think, this is where you know, a lot of those blog reporters and all of those things are bringing a lot of urgency and a lot of momentum to stories that wouldn't normally carry any momentum.

Bloggers and other flavors of lone wolf are publishing heart-wrenching photo-essays from the front line of the recovery effort. Newspapers and TV networks? They're writing about the temperature of the water in some part (they don't specify which) of some damaged reactor, illustrating it with video screen grabs of machinery they don't understand enough to explain.

I think a lot of newspapers have lost touch with that sense of community, which so impressed me as a teenager when I had to knock on people's doors.

Thankfully, readers send a lot of stuff. They see stories in their local newspaper. Or friends of mine email me, what they heard or saw. ... I'm very plugged in

Citizen journalism is rapidly emerging as an invaluable part of delivering the news. With the expansion of the Web and the ever-decreasing size and cost of camera phones and video cameras, the ability to commit acts of journalism is spreading to everyone.

I had been at the newspaper for a few months. It wasn’t regarded as the paper, it was their paper. There was a sense of community because they reported, we reported, I reported the little things, the whist drives, the weddings, the funerals, the little speeches. In one sense it was the most boring copy in the world to anyone picking it up, but, on the other hand, it was crucial to the people who lived in those communities.

I've always been a firm believer in local news, because it's an opportunity to connect with the community where you live.

Protesters should make their own media and not rely on mainstream media to cover them.