There are two types of citizen journalists: the accidental documenter and the motivated newsmaker. Inspired by a desire to shape public discussion and highlight the forgotten news of their time, the latter form dedicates time, energy and resources to fill the gaps left empty by larger media outlets.
Read Part 1 of this special Mint Press News series.
One of the major players in capturing photos of the Occupy Wall Street movement from the beginning is Shameel Arafin, recognized by iCNN as a key contributor whose images made it to the front page of CNN’s main website in the early days of Occupy Wall Street.
A software architect by day, Arafin contributes his time to capturing the images of his time — both through still photography and videography.
He began documenting protests in New York during the Arab Spring, before Occupy Wall Street emerged as a movement.
“I thought it was important, that the subject matter was more important than the images I regularly took photos of,” he said in an interview with Mint Press News.
On the first day of Occupy Wall Street — Sept. 17, 2011 — Arafin was there.
“I was there for that, it gathered steam and I began to realize it was a big story,” he said, “so I kept covering it.”
While larger media outlets scratched the surface of the Occupy movement, stressing large crowds and security concerns, Arafin was on the ground making contacts and getting the inside scoop of what was happening, specifically in regard to police brutality and attempted suppression of the movement.
After uploading his work to iCNN, he was contacted by CNN’s editorial department, who asked for permission to interview him for ‘on the ground accounts’ and use his images on its news site. He agreed and was given an NYPD press pass, which gave him more freedom as a journalist to cover the movement.
After clocking out at his day job, which involved writing code, he ascended on the streets of New York, conversing with people and using his trained eye to capture the images he knew to be newsworthy. As Arafin sees it, there are two types of citizen journalists: those who accidentally capture key images and those who make a beat for themselves, getting to know key players and using observation to gauge when the moment is right to capture key images. He considers himself the latter — and so did CNN.
His pieces included the arrests at the three-month Occupy mark and the May Day protests of 2012. In a written piece, Arafin was among a handful who reported “black bloc” protesters’ attacks on photojournalists.
“There are reports of some protesters trying to wrest cameras away from photojournalists, as well as reports of some protesters spraying black paint at the cameras,” he wrote.
While his photojournalism portfolio has grown quite substantial, especially when relating to the Occupy protest movement, Arafin said he has no desire to leave his software architecture job for full-time journalism — but he also has no plans to stop documenting the scenes of his time, especially when they relate to civil liberties.
The question often asked of citizen journalists is “why?” Why spend time, resources and energy on a “job” that has no monetary reward? The answer for Arafin is two-fold.
“I think it has to do with personality and love of photography. Photography gets me out there,” he said.
Yet there’s another motivation that compels him to clock out and hit the streets: his passion for justice and concern over erosion of civil liberties.
“I think for a lot of my life, I was politically apathetic,” the 37-year-old said. “Now, I’m politically conscious.”
As a Bangladeshi immigrant, his eyes have been drawn from police brutality to racism, to the erosion of civil liberties. Taking photos is his way to document the ugly scenes that could spur positive change.
Arafin no longer contributes to iCNN, and instead maintains his own website, complete with photojournalism that tells the story of those struggling in his own city. He moved away from citizen journalism with one of the nation’s largest network, citing criticism he received from paid journalists. And he didn’t blame them. At the same time iCNN was all the rage, the company began to layoff photojournalists.
Despite his acknowledgement of the evolving industry that doesn’t always favor career journalists, Arafin knows photojournalism is here to stay.
“There’s no way to fight it,” he said, “you have to work with it.”
Telling the story from a world away
Without social media, it’s questionable whether the world would have witnessed the reality of the Arab Spring in Egypt, Tunisia, Yemen and Bahrain. Facebook was used to schedule protests and Twitter was used as an outlet to tell the world what was happening.
In the days leading up to former Egyptian president Hosni Mubarak’s resignation, people in Egypt sent out 230,000 tweets a day — that’s up from the regular average of 2,300, according to a study conducted by the University of Washington. Videos on YouTube went viral — the “top 23” received a combined total of more than 5.5 million views.
“Our evidence suggests that social media carried a cascade of messages about freedom and democracy across North Africa and the Middle East, and helped raise expectations for the success of political uprising,” University of Washington Associate Professor Philip Howard said regarding a study on the role of social media in the Arab Spring. “People who shared interest in democracy built extensive social networks and organized political action.”
The world’s larger news outlets took notice of the interest citizen journalists’ coverage was having throughout the world. It showed them their readers and viewers were interested, and they responded with coverage.
“People throughout the region were drawn into an extended conversation about social uprising. The success of demands for political change in Egypt and Tunisia led individuals in other countries to pick up the conversation. It helped create discussion across the region.”
Bahrain is an example of a movement that stemmed from the Arab Spring. While not seen as a “success,” the story was told through the eyes of those who devoted their lives to pursuing freedom for their neighbors — and showing the world the reality inside the borders of a nation ruled by an oppressive regime. Abdul-Hadi al-Khawaja is just one — and is now behind bars for “attempting to overthrow the regime.”
Al-Khawaja, a human rights activist, emerged as the citizen journalist of his time. At great costs, he not only documented the uprising, but inspired others to don the citizen journalist cap, despite the dangerous consequences. Nabeel Rajab, president for the Bahrain Center for Human Rights, emerged alongside al-Khawaja, organizing protests, speaking at rallies. He, too, is now in jail.
“Because of my tweets, I have been in jail since 9th July, sentenced to two years in prison. My friends are operating my account on my behalf,” his Twitter profile, with 203,540 followers and 29,265 tweets, reads.
The sacrifice made by citizen journalists in Bahrain showed just how powerful the movement is. International news organizations like Al Jazeera and CNN International shied away from coverage. Yet the world knows what happened there — and what is happening — thanks to the sacrifice made by those willing to put their lives on the line
Read Part 1 of this special Mint Press News series