Barack Obama can thank 'citizen journalist' for 'bitter' tempest
A Huffington Post item by one Mayhill Fowler is the latest reminder of how untraditional reporters and news outlets have changed the nature of journalism and politics.
Mayhill Fowler grew up with a mother who didn't like her talking politics in the home. As an adult, she faced publishers who wouldn't put her writing in print.
She found an outlet for her twin passions of writing and politics last year on the liberal Huffington Post website.
Fowler concedes that her early reports from the Democratic presidential campaign trail didn't produce anything particularly newsworthy.
But that all changed Friday, when her report on Barack Obama’s statements about small-town Americans -- that job losses cause them to become "bitter" and to "cling to guns or religion" or other views -- thrust the 61-year-old Oakland woman into a political storm that continued to rage Monday.
Her article caused his election opponents to charge him with elitism, and it exposed the neophyte "citizen journalist" to waves of vitriol.
The furor is the latest reminder of how untraditional reporters and news outlets have changed the nature of journalism and politics. Fowler, a contributor to Obama's campaign, gained access to an event deemed "closed" to mainstream journalists, and the resulting story forced big news outlets to take notice.
"We have entered new territory and the rules are not all clear," said Larry Pryor, a USC journalism professor. "You have to assume that everything is on the record. There's no getting around that anymore."
Fowler said Monday that she had received about 200 e-mail messages that ranged from "creepy to threatening," including a few death threats from purported Obama supporters. She said about 25 e-mails praised her.
Writers on the liberal website Daily Kos took up the complaints, accusing Fowler of intentionally undermining Obama and feigning support for the candidate to gain access to the San Francisco fundraiser where he made the controversial remarks April 6.
"It's like the liberal blogosphere has issued a fatwa against me," Fowler said in a telephone interview.
She said she was concerned enough about the angry response to her story that she did not want to reveal exactly where she would be reporting in Pennsylvania in advance of next week's primary. Fowler does, however, intend to continue covering the Democratic race. "But with some caution," she said.
Fowler, who is married to a lawyer and has two daughters in graduate school, said she began writing at 50. She has written a thriller, a mystery novel and a nonfiction account of caring for her ailing mother-in-law -- all unpublished.
