It's up to Citizen Journalists to Uncover the Face of Homelessness in 2010

Everyone knows a mainstream, disciplined, and socially responsible journalism industry that reveals deeper truths about things like homelessness is dead.

This same industry has been droning on about every detail of its uncomfortably self-indulgent gasps from beyond the grave for at least 10 years. At first, the thought was outrageous. Could it really be possible that an institution (sometimes) devoted to uncovering the substance of everyday life might give way (even more) to corporate stranglehold? Would its duty to document what matters (for the most part) really succumb to an idiotic crustiness, a stubborn resistance to change? Yes to both. And how.

In 2010, the local paper is positively irrelevant while publications of national significance are noteworthy mostly because of their ability to cater to Wall Street or user-friendly web pages. The thought of a Baby Boomer Era photojournalist stubbornly proclaiming the social responsibility of his profession seems quaint next to the overwhelming din of a world entranced by Perez Hilton's masturbatory typing.

It's no surprise, then, that the most talked about homelessness photograph last year was a joke. The picture was taken by Pablo Martinez Monsivais for the Associated Press around March of 2009 and has become more or less semi-iconic, if that means anything. You know it: the one with a homeless man snapping a picture of Michelle Obama in line at a soup kitchen. Funny. You know, because it's funny that someone on the streets might have the audacity to pick up a paid-by-the-minute track phone from Cricket or Virgin.

Get it? It's supposed to be surprising, unexpected (For more on this, see Shannon's piece on the 10 Most Notable Homeless Stories of 2009 above). But the deep social commentary inherent to this shitty picture goes further: it provokes interesting discussion, too!  Examples of possible ignorant and distorting "dialogues" at time of this picture's release included, "If this unidentified meal recipient is too poor to buy his own food, how does he afford a cellphone?". That gem of incisive social criticism is from the LA Times, where you might expect a sconce more awareness in a city with 40,000-ish homeless.

The buzz kill at the pundit party comes when you consider the human wages of covering up with an unexamined editorial choice the painful realities of an as-yet-undead recession.

Look back. The last time our poorest faced such overwhelming problems in this country was the Great Depression. We hear that all the time. What we don't hear with any great regularity is that a community of writers, photographers, artists, and folklorists organized around this 1930s economic disaster to illuminate the crisis and make it impossible to ignore. We don't hear an admission from journalists that they're too underfunded and unmotivated to flood the public imagination with images of a homeless population that far surpasses the Great Depression's at its worst. We don't hear is that families and children are still suffering deeply because of the loss of a socially responsible (or even aware) community of journalists.

Then whose responsibility is it to document these problems? Who steps up to the plate if the people getting paid to uncover this Great Recession are shilling for Shell Petroleum, etc?

We do.

The continued development of a robust and critically engaged community of citizen journalists would undoubtedly be an aid to stemming the tide of homelessness in the United States. But let's step back for the moment. By citizen journalism I don't mean the same thing, maybe, as what's usually discussed. Citizen journalism as reported by corporate media outlets usually means that you create the content then give it away to large organizations that profit by way of web traffic from the work you've done. A version of citizen journalism that strives to do more than save money for dying news outlets means a cell phone camera, a social conscience, a web community like Change.org or whatever, and your own dedication to fighting for the country's most vulnerable.

We can all do that. Here's an experiment I tried. Talk to a homeless person on the way to work. Ask to take her picture. Post the picture on your cubicle, Facebook page, wherever. Field the context questions your co-workers ask as they walk by and wonder about it. Look up the answers to what you don't know. Ask why the person is there at all and without a home. Asking questions: that's what citizen journalism means.

Doing this puts you in great historical company. During the Great Depression, the photographer responsible for the powerful picture above, Dorothy Lange, completed an extraordinary body of work devoted entirely to share croppers suffering from lost farms. She gave her pictures to any paper that would take them because it was that important to her that people saw what was happening. That's some role model, right?

So my wish for 2010? That today's million citizen photojournalist Dorothy Langes step up to create a lasting, world changing series of images that document the current homelessness crisis with poignancy and integrity. Let's make sure the pictures of the homeless receiving the most attention this year are those that really matter.

Image by Dorothy Lange "Migrant Mother" courtesy of the Library of Congress