Recorded on March 19, 2015
PEN-New England recognizes Ferguson activists and bloggers Johnetta Elzie and DeRay McKesson with its 2015 Howard Zinn Freedom to Write award for their work as activists, organizers, and citizen journalists in the Ferguson protest movement. Their reporting and This Is the Movement newsletter engaged and unified disparate voices in the wake of the August 9, 2014, shooting death of Michael Brown in Ferguson Missouri. Jabari Asim, editor-in-chief of The Crisis, leads this discussion of the role of citizen journalism and activism in our changing media landscape. What role did these citizen journalists expect to play in Ferguson? How did their expectations change as their actual role evolved? What lessons does their experience carry for other citizen journalists?
This program is organized and co-sponsored by PEN-New England.
Watch “Witnessing” on YouTube here.