task 3: Citizen Journalist, fact checkers & James Frey

I am finding it hard to pull one thing out and deem it the most interesting, I am sure others did as well. The concept of Citizen Journalism really caught my attention, though I see the advantages only negative examples came to mind.

The video cast of the tasered student in the library was shown in my multi-cultural lit class last semester, it was a very powerful series of images and an interesting story that would have never been seen if not for a camera phone. At that time, I thought, “Grand, people now have to opportunity to expose every facet of injustice that they encounter,” and I know that I was being altruistic. The only reason why most people wanted to see that clip was for entertainment purposes, I find that a sad critique of humanity.

Then there are the privacy issues, and in this moment, I will make this blog’s only “big brother” reference. Seeing that morals and values are often upheld to an absurd extreme one can only image future websites archiving the…less glamorous?...moments of a person’s life, captured for ever, in low grade digital video. I guess we all have to keep ourselves in check.

On a slightly brighter note, the citizen based media movement is making sure that everyone who reports the news, or puts anything into print for that matter, has there facts straight. Countless legions of fact checkers are laying in wait, ready to point their finger at any writer who is trying to deceive the American public…. It sounds good, if that’s the way that I worked

The most notable and a perfect example of taking things a little bit too far was the debacle surrounding James Frey. He wrote a wonderful autobiography about addiction and recovery called “A Million Little Pieces.” At first, this book won its way into the hearts of millions, for it truly was a heart touching story, though it did have many sharp edges. I was surprised to see it on Oparh’s Book Club. However, an internet site called The Smoking Gun stated that the events in the book did not match up with police records. it seems that James fabricated parts of his memoir. He was ultimately dropped from his publisher but not before being scrutinized by Larry King and Oparh.

I guess that the “gonzo autobiography” will never be a valid literary genre. The fact remains that the man told a really good story that brought a darker facet of human experience into the mainstream. “A Million Little Pieces” was required reading in the Chemical Dependency class at the college I previously attended (I feel the need to say that it was book I found on my own). So as a depiction of addiction it holds merit, I found no need to drag the man through the mud because embellished parts of his life. Move the book over the fiction section along side the memoirs of William S Burroughs and Jack Kerouac.