It hurt when I walked to class this morning. That's how cold it was. The wind was hitting me and, for the first time ever, I wanted to yell because it was so cold. I don't know what I would have yelled..."COOOOLD?" Eh, probably something more profane. Anyway, I thought to myself, "It sure would suck to be out reporting on a day like this."
Later in the day, I was doing some research on Santa Rosa, California. A news station there, KFTY-TV, fired a bunch of their staff and is going to rely heavily on citizens for content. At first I thought this was an awful idea. If it were just a website where new content didn't NEED to be up every night, then maybe. But they need news every night to put on the air. What if people get lazy that day? What if the best video they have for their lead story is two kids' turtle race that a mom taped in their back yard?
Image by Nick NelsonVineyard Photo: Team Mahaska online
Camera graphic: DEVINE DESIGN
What kind of city would it take to pull this off? They'd have to be pretty open-minded. Then I got on the city's Web site. Wow. This place really is progressive. I hate to use the word "hippies" but...hippies. I clicked on the News tab. After reading one of the stories there, I bought a plane ticket so I wouldn't miss this year's Scooter Rosa Scooter Ride and Festival. One third of the city site's news stories have the word "art" in the headline. The city's newspaper: The Press Democrat (likely promoting democracy rather than the political party's views...but still.)Their downtown has free WiFi service, which isn't really a hippy thing, but it's progressive from a technological standpoint.
The city's Web site mainly promotes the area's scenery, and that's what pushed me over the edge in thinking that this thing could work. It's surrounded by 200 vineyards and wineries. Current temperature: 70. People are going to be willing to shoot news because the place is just plain pleasant. It really does depend on the type on community, and I'm anxious to see how this plays out, but for now I'm going to shoot to work for a larger market and put on another sweater.
Here's an unexpected tie-together for this post and the previous -- I run the Capitol Hill Seattle site you mention in the citizen journalism post and, coincidentally, I grew up just north of Santa Rosa. If you want hippies, you need to drive another hour north of Santa Rosa. SR is a sprawling, working city. It has a really strong upper middle class -- I'd look at KFTY situation in terms of resources and tech savvy. But who knows? Maybe all those wonderful freaks in Mendocino county have influenced their city cousins to the south.
j from Capitol Hill Seattle (SJSU bs journalism, '96)
So did you make it to Scooter Rosa?