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June 18, 2003
Terrance Shurn
Terrence Shurn ran from the cops. He died. Shurn was black, the cops were white. Shurn had an ounce of weed on him. Shurn's neighbors took it to the streets. They burned a couple of buildings and cop cars. Ten to fifteen people were hurt, none seriously.
Granted, this doesn't meet my criteria of a Lynch factor for getting me concerned about what's going radically wrong in the course of human events, but I've been wondering if and when the discussions on the ground might hit the blogosphere. While lots of folks are still speculating on whether or not it was good to beat Iraq down, I've taken a moment to consider if the grass roots are still getting i-play. I'm hoping very much that Google can give us links into the unofficial versions, i.e. all bloggers and no big media.
If we take it as a foregone conclusion that the FCC's recent ruling will turn the American mediasphere into a narrowcast, then the internet may be our saving grace. Despite the fact that O'Reilly doesn't like it, bloggers on the ground may turn out to be the only source of diversity in news reporting. We won't call it that, but that's what it will be.
Jessica Lynch can't tell her own story. She forgot. It's an interesting turn of events that gives the monster media companies all good reason to elbow for rights to cash in on a singular myth-making opportunity. This being the human interest story of the entire war, there will be references back to this for decades to come. Get the footage imprinted now, milk it for ad revenues from here to kingdom come. This is exactly the reverse of how it should be. Lynch should blog her own story.
Of course there's only truth and activism in the non-journalistic impressions of actual people actually involved in that day to day activity called life that sometimes gets processed into news. But what we tell our neighbors is good enought to communicate. Let's let the ordinary folks do so.
Let's not fall for the myth of disinterest. I know there's some Randian logic in that, but it's what I am coming to believe more and more as I hear the constant barrage of the unqualifyable and marginal slyly associated with corruption. If I didn't hate commercials so much, I think I'd turn off NPR completely (except for Garrison Keillor). You cannot stand at a disinterested distance and expect to comprehend the full truth of a matter. Its the difference between the French verbs savoir and connaitre. Knowing facts is far shallower than experiencing the factors. Subjective experience is what's missing from our collective understanding, and it cannot be conjured properly with Hollywood production values. It has to come from the gut source.
So there's a story of a black riot out there. It would be more excellent than a little if we could get to the Benton Harbor blogs and hear it from the people who threw the rocks. Instead we'll get it from the reporters and their reporting apparatus. Good enough to imprint the simple story, car chase ends bad with racial overtones, but not good enough to put us in touch with Benton Harbor and Terrance Shurn, who died this week.
Posted by mbowen at June 18, 2003 10:14 PM
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