Your phone as an instrument of truth
Journalists can't be everywhere. Why the new Fourth Estate needs you to press RECORD.
This is an expanded version of an op-ed I published Saturday morning on bostonglobe.com. It ran in the print edition of the Globe today.
We know the truth about the US government’s killing of two of its citizens for one reason: witnesses with smartphones.
When federal immigration agents in Minneapolis shot and killed Renée Good on Jan. 7 and Alex Pretti on Jan. 24, there were no journalists in position to document what happened. Because bystanders vastly outnumber journalists, everyday people are providing coverage that would otherwise have escaped public scrutiny.
Recording the raw video is only the start. The process requires expert verification, often but not always by journalists, to nail down the truth. For example, was the video recorded at the scene the same as what’s described in the story? Is it free of manipulation? But that essential first step — the documented witnessing — spotlights an increasingly vital dimension of civic responsibility. It is especially important in an age of shrinking newsrooms and increased disinformation and gaslighting from public officials.
This is the evolution of a phenomenon that was first tracked in 1991, when George Holliday filmed Los Angeles police beating Rodney King. It continued in 2014, when Ramsey Orta filmed New York police officers fatally choking Eric Garner. And it culminated with Darnella Frazier, the 17-year-old student who was walking her cousin to a Minneapolis store and ended up filming the police murder of George Floyd in 2020.
Frazier was awarded a Pulitzer Prize Special Citation in 2021 for highlighting “the crucial role of citizens in journalists’ quest for truth and justice.”
The professional-amateur model is the natural evolution of the “hybrid approach” I advocated for in a report published by Harvard’s Shorenstein Center in 2010, Clues in the Rubble: A User-First Framework for Sustaining Local News. Back then, my focus was on saving local news. It’s still about that, but more importantly, it’s about saving democracy.
Preparing for the role of witness
This emerging Fourth Estate collaboration should not be left to chance. It’s up to all of us to prepare for the role of witness. Here’s how:
Learn the basics of evidentiary video. If you do film with an idea of sharing it with a news organization, it’s important to learn the basics of evidentiary video. On Saturday, Wired Magazine published an extensive guide about How to film ICE.
Witness.org, an international organization that helps people document what they witness, suggests simple but important protocols at bit.ly/witness2026. They include:
Working in pairs for safety
Verbally confirming the date and time on camera
Filming street signs to aid in geolocation
Including your full contact info.
Know where to send the footage. The Boston Globe, for instance, lists “News Tips” at the bottom of its web pages and provides an email address: newstip@globe.com. Not all news organizations provide such information as prominently, but you’ll find it with a little digging online or a call to the news desk.
Learn the techniques and standards of the new Fourth Estate
These aren’t just filming tips. They’re among the standards of the new Fourth Estate.
For their part, news organizations need to show their own work as well as that of bystanders. They must explain the verification process to build trust with skeptical audiences. And when bystanders contribute the definitive documentation of a major event, news organizations should treat them as freelancers, providing appropriate credit and compensation.
The responsibility to avoid spreading fake video and images applies to non-journalists just as much as it does to publishers. An important dimension of the new civic responsibility includes confirming that something is real before sharing it on social media. A number of free verification services are available online.
Avoid “bothsidesism”
For verification to serve its purpose, news organizations must speak plainly about what they’ve confirmed. They must avoid the pitfalls of “bothsidesism” — the practice of presenting truth and falsity as if they are both perspectives worthy of consideration. That calls for a clarity of language that sometimes eludes even the most experienced journalists.
By way of example, some of the initial headlines above stories reporting the killing of Alex Pretti said the video documentation “appears” to contradict Trump administration versions of what happened.
That wording made as much sense as declaring, on a Sunday, that it “appears to be Sunday.”
Working with mainstream media requires a new form of civic discipline. It is not enough to press record. Be careful to avoid flooding newsrooms with routine footage.
I took a number of photos and videos at Saturday’s ICE Out Everywhere rally on the Boston Common, for example, but nothing especially consequential. And since I noticed the Globe’s award-winning photographer, John Tlumacki, in the crowd I figured the Globe would have ample good images to choose from without mine.
That video (see below) was good enough for my Facebook account, though, and the modest audience it reached there (about 900 views and about 80 reactions) was worth the effort.
Asking the former audience for help
Participatory journalism is not limited to the streets. Non-journalists have also stepped in to fill the gaps in more routine coverage, such as school board meetings, a trend foreshadowed by my former San Jose Mercury News colleague Dan Gillmor. In his 2006 book, We The Media, Gillmor explained how that could work in a section headed Asking the Former Audience for Help. Gillmor popularized the idea of referring to readers, viewers and listeners as “the people formerly known as the audience.”
A success story of non-journalists providing valuable coverage available nowhere else: Last Night @ School Committee. The Globe has described the podcast as a crucial and opportune service to Bostonians. It’s a conclusion that resonates with our three-generational household as we try to keep track of local school policies. In Maine, new media pioneer Lincoln Millstein retired from his corporate job in 2018 and launched a one-man initiative doing this kind of work.
Whether the issue is a re-zoning request or life and death issues raised by armed and masked government agents, the challenge of documenting what’s happening is increasingly up to all of us.
At a time when public officials are urging people to disbelieve what they see with their own eyes, the stakes have never been higher. All the more reason for witnesses and journalists to establish the kind of Fourth Estate it will take to protect democracy and help it flourish.
Thanks for this, Bill. Although it's true, as you say in this post that "there were no journalists in position to document what happened" the day Renee Good was shot, @Status Coup News, an independent progressive outlet, was on site immediately afterward. Founded by Jordan Chariton, Status Coup is a progressive media outlet that features investigative and on-the-ground reporting on politics, corruption, the working class, social justice, and the environment. Chariton's reporting has been published by The Guardian, Vice News, The Intercept, The Hill and others. Status Coup is just one of hundreds of independent, progressive media outlets reporting on the ground, on the local stories and beats that few major outlets have the bandwidth to dig into. Please follow me here on Substack and through my social channels where I am sharing their work. I hope you will be moved to support Bill and support these newsrooms.
Good frontline reporting, my friend. So different from our work as correspondents at Time decades ago, but with changing times come smart new tactics to get word out, which is after all what we tried to do years ago!