Friday, August 06, 2021
Giving a Bad Name to 'Citizen Journalist': What was probably supposed to look organic looked fake as fuck.
Citizen Is Paying Users To Run The App And Their Mouths At Crime Scenes And Medical Emergencies
from the patron-of-the-arts-I-guess dept
That’s the pitch from Citizen, a controversial neighborhood watch app that’s quietly hiring New Yorkers to livestream crime scenes and other public emergencies in an apparent effort to encourage more ordinary citizens to do the same, The Post has learned.
This seems like a bad idea.
> It's one thing for people to happen upon one of these incidents and start livestreaming.
> It's quite another to pay people to put themselves at risk in service of an app hoping to increase its user base and repair its reputation.
> And it's yet another thing to be dishonest about what's happening, as both Citizen and its paid contributors are doing.
In June, the Daily Dot uncovered a Los Angeles Citizen app user who appeared to be a paid content contributor. The user known as Landon1129 just happened to be at the scene of eight separate incidents spanning 30 miles in a single day -- a day that also featured "Landon1129" being interviewed twice by Citizen's own live show. Eight incidents covered by the same user -- a user who frequently reminded viewers that he was "live on the Citizen app." What was probably supposed to look organic looked fake as fuck.
Now, there's some confirmation, albeit obliquely. Citizen claims it has always used "street teams" to expand coverage, generate content, and, I assume, increase brand awareness. But it has never made this explicit and its ads seeking contributors make no mention of the app.
Citizen says that it doesn’t hide its use of paid field team members.
But:
The company also doesn’t post the jobs on its own Web site. And Citizen’s name was not included in a since-deleted job posting Thursday on career board JournalismJobs.com seeking “field team members” to work for an unnamed “tech company with user-generated content.”
It's probably not a good idea for a company with both a literal and figurative background in vigilantism to pay people to head to crime scenes and other emergencies. There are plenty of people who get paid to do that already, and they're better at doing their jobs and not getting in the way of others trying to do theirs than the average respondent to a vague Craigslist ad. Stringers may be interlopers seeking sellable content but at least they have some idea of what to expect when they arrive on the scene and (usually) have cultivated good relationships with the public servants they'll be working with (and around).
> To be sure, journalistic efforts shouldn't be restricted by gatekeepers who only believe certain people can perform journalism.
But Citizen's history, along with its blatant desire to capitalize on people's fears, makes it a particularly questionable patron of the journalistic arts. If Citizen really wanted to put its resources behind expanding journalistic coverage of newsworthy incidents, it would do it without the use of a third-party contractor bound by an NDA that forbids telling journalists, who hired the contractor to place ads looking for journalists, who may ultimately not be pleased they're now working for an app with a terrible reputation.
Filed Under: citizen journalist, crime scenes, private security, vigilante
Companies: citizen
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Spotlight Today: Downtown Mesa Artist Bill Barnhart's Exalted 'Quonset Hut' / Workspace Studio + Gallery
Mesa Contemporary Arts Museum
Created in the summer of 2014, Mesa Arizona artist William Barnhart’s Seattle Series is a gorgeous collection of large-scale, high-color, oil-on-canvas paintings. Barnhart honors aquatic and aviary life in his inimitable style: wide strokes, bright vistas, deep movement. Made while the prolific, celebrated artist was sailing on Washington’s Lake Union on his beloved, restored sailboat, “Champion,” this new series interpret the sights, sounds and experiences of being alive.
Do they tell some kind-of-a-story of their own?
Your MesaZona blogger will leave the answers to that question to your imagination . . .
There is one Giacometti-style larger-than-life NUDE PUBLIC ART piece in front of the downtown studio of downtown resident artist Bill Barnhart, shown in the featured image to this piece.It's from this website https://www.artsyshark.com/ back on April 17, 2013 that includes some really good words from Bill where he says, "My large oil paintings, monotypes, and bronze sculptures delve into matters of the universal human heart, such as love, joy, passion, beauty, kindness and hope"
To paraphrase Bill Barnhart, whom your MesaZona blogger has been acquainted with for a few years, his contemporary figurative artworks are an exploration of the drama, the emotional complexities, the mental and spiritual realities of this human experience we are suspended in.
Link to the artist's website > https://www.fineartist.com/
U.S. Department of Justice Starts A Long-Overdue Investigation Into Phoenix and Maricopa County Law-and-Order Prosecution Issues
Arizona Prosecutors Pretend 'ACAB' Is Gang Lingo To Hit Protesters With Felony Gang Charges
from the it-appears-at-least-some-of-these-cops-are-bastards-tho dept
"This is how the law enforcement community has responded to nationwide complaints that they do their jobs poorly, violently, and abusively: by doing their jobs poorly, violently, and abusively.
The killing of George Floyd by a Minnesota police officer set off anti-police brutality protests across the nation. These protests were met with more police violence, with some of the violence singling out journalists, protesters, and legal observers. Things have since calmed down, but each new instance of police violence tends to result in another set of protests. Cops have proven they can't stop killing people or violating their rights so this cycle will continue in perpetuity.
Since it's impossible to calm the police down, it appears prosecutors and law enforcement agencies are shifting their focus into inflicting maximum pain on those exercising First Amendment rights.
A truly ridiculous response to a recent protest in Arizona shows just how far the government is willing to go to stifle dissent. Maybe the ultimate goal isn't to end protests, but the end result of this Phoenix protest shows local law enforcement is willing to put their credibility on the line to punish citizens for being unhappy with the status quo. . .
HERE'S ONE KICKER: And the Maricopa county prosecutor's office has continued to double-down on this brutal stupidity. It has refused to directly address the ridiculousness of pretending ACAB is a gang call sign. . t's just an accusation, folks.
*A charge in a crime is merely an accusation and the defendant is presumed innocent until and unless proven guilty.
See? Nothing stupid or politically-charged about turning BLM protesters carrying umbrellas into a street gang for indictment purposes.
A few months down the road and these charges remain on the books. Nothing has changed. The prosecutors are offering plea deals, but the "deals" involve pleading guilty to something that simply isn't true. . .This is Maricopa law enforcement showing residents they're exactly who the residents thought they were: petty, vindictive people with far too much power.
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Flash News: Ukraine Intercepts Russian Kh-59 Cruise Missile Using US VAMPIRE Air Defense System Mounted on Boat. Ukrainian forces have made ...
