Green Robe Industries

It happens every time there’s major weather, in whatever part of the world. Camera crews rush in mass to be at the scene of the devastation.  Hurricane Katrina was no exception.  True, these events make personal brands for some.  For other, (most) their names are forever branded with the stigma of being the ‘designated stander’ for whatever horrific weather events befall their geographic region.  Rather than landing the coveted studio gigs, these folks are stamped with the name of ‘designated stander’ and forced for evermore to test their bravado in the face of whatever cometh.  (Without the sense that God gave a goat, to come in out of the rain.)  Forced to bear the brunt of both weather and the quasi-masochistic and totally inane questioning of those warmer and dryer.   
 
Being in the micro-minority of those in the civilized world who choose not to own a TV, I am relegated to the dregs of video clips so oft played by the networks as to be deemed worthless enough to post to the web.  My view of the current events is somewhat skewed.  On July 7th the first place I turned to help understand the London bombings was Flickr.  Why?  Because I knew that images would appear there first.  Not because I believe in citizen journalism, which I do, but because the events subverted the news empire’s process.  The crews were not in route when the bombs blew up, they were trying to figure out what else to sensationalize.  The job was left up to those who had no choice in the matter, and yet still had the presence of mind to record the events as they unfolded before them.  Only later, when things had calmed down a bit, would news crews arrive to broadcast what had been taken with a camera phone by somebody a bit braver and by those who had already left the building.
 
Today, the first place I turned for information and video was the networks and their websites.  Not because they would have all the answers, but because I was hoping for a few good designated standers.  Those who would brave life and limb to show me just how bad it was going to be.  The details, I knew, would all come out later.  But in the short term, the poor bastard, locked out of his hotel until the air pressure dropped, and left to stand struggling against the wrath of the weather, would entertain me. But the reason was a little deeper.  I also knew, that there would be few if any vloggers or podcasters braving the same elements.  Sure, the bloggers would be working overtime, true, until their power was cut, reporting what they could glean from the designated standers… from the warmth of their robes and sturdy structures.   But the citizen journalist, I so admire, would have made every effort to be reporting from safer locales.  Why?  Because they are smarter than big media.
 
Yes, part of me wishes that I could have caught Amanda Congdon’s take on the weather or at least a Rocketboom roving reporter.  But I knew that these people are brighter than that.  They would leave it to the brave folks with trucks that have sails on their roofs to rush to the bowels of the hurricane and show us all of its fury.  The wake of the storm will provide the real information.  The numbers of dead, the rebuilding costs, the sad stories reported by the sad people who stood out in the rain.  Mocking the storm’s true fury, for my amusement, clad only in a station branded windbreakers.