Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Saint Louis Tea Party Videographers

The Instapundit leads by example. He and Dr. Helen, reporting for PJTV, interviewed some Knoxville Tea Partiers at the County Assessors Office. The Tea Partiers were there to complain that raising property assessments (and, therefore, property taxes) was unjust when property values were actually falling.

I'd like to bring this sort of citizen reporting to Saint Louis. We've got a little coterie of videographers here, but we don't have a discussion forum yet. I'm thinking maybe a group blog, maybe a listserv. We need a communication nexus. If you're interested, email me or friend my email address on Facebook!

One of the difficulties I've had is knowing when there's something newsworthy to report on. I'm still bummed that I missed this counter protest. If we've got a central clearing house (a group blog, fb, whatever), then we can track upcoming events. At first it may just be friends that clue us in about events, but we'll get other sources over time. A website would allow videographers (and old-school shuterbugs) to indicate their availability to cover upcoming events.

If Dana Loesch, Bill Hennessy, the Gateway Pundit, and others in the Saint Louis Tea Party leadership know that there's an ad hoc team of citizen journalists that they can task, I think they'll do just that. Right now, this is just a call for volunteers. Next, we'll outline some ground rules and start building the infrastructure. I'm sure it will be messy, but we won't let that stop us from building a Nation of Cameramen!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Sadly, I don't think the St. Louis Tea Party leadership is interested in anything but driving traffic to their sites.

dsm said...

That's a two-way street. They drive traffic to their sites by working with videographers--I've given them lots of inbound links. However, even if they don't there's still a need for a virtual St Louis video production house.

That said, I do feel your sentiment, but I rationalize it away. This is a dispersed, grass-roots, bottom-up movement. The fine print on the box says "leadership not included". Do NOT let that demoralize you. Yes. That's hard.