Does a Cell Phone Make You a Reporter ?

Did you see that North Carolina Congressman who had to apologize for manhandling a "student" doing a 'gotcha' on the street interview ? It was a confrontation on video tape (and on purpose) that went viral once on the Internet.
It's yet another example of how new technology creates news and can be used to affect politicians and how we perceive their actions.
This week, a local man who went to a fundraiser for Rep. Bill Owens, emailed cell phone photos of the event. There was nothing horrible, except the defacto "reporting" of who was at the soire on the St. Lawrence River.
It was an insight into the political process that the MSM either chooses or is unable to cover.
In some ways it is more interesting than the traditional 'made for media' town meeting the Congressman had held earlier in the day.
To me, knowing who is backing a candidate is as insightful as any press release or staged event.
The strong presence of health care executives at the fundraiser was insightful given the developments unfolding with the advent of ObamaCare, which the Congressman voted for.
These vignettes do provide an insight, but are not the whole story and that is one of the dangers in the new "citizen journalists."
The MSM reporters, who are also now bloggers, serve a vital role in compiling all this information, sorting through it and following up on it. In that sense a resourceful MSM can find a market for reporting that goes beyond the stream of conciousness that is "new media".