What do we need to turn blogging into real citizen journalism?

Money. Especially for investigative work.

MSM are often, but not always, doing steno journalism: reproducing releases and -- a small improvement -- getting he said, she said comments from a cadre of observers they've come to rely upon.
Bloggers have numbers and can use their personal contacts and research to deepen stories. Certainly Oder is an IF Stone type example, covering one set of issues very carefully. with better equipment and more time, we could cover NYC much better and with more focus on grass-roots action. For example, while we sometimes announce events in advance, we sometimes don't cover them.

The race for city council in SI has not yet been the subject of an article here. People wrote about Harrison's race against Fsocella, bus since then - bupkas. A Democratic City Council member would vastly strengthen any attempt in 2008 to elect democrats to congress, state senate or assembly there. On the subject of SI, I cannot even remember much coverage of mattthew titone's race. Other state senate races we didn't look in on much: nybri's upstate race and the challenges to NYC republicans

Other than elections, we're doing only a little on bread and butter issues in NYC and the state; there's room for a ton more teasing out the details. Goodness knows that some of these issues are covered elesewhere, but they and we often reporting the work of others( not checking and investigating)

We could do much more with time and equipment both.

I've been involved to a limited degree with Manny Innamorato's special election campaign to fill Andrew Lanza's usually empty Southshore/Mid-Island council seat (Marchi's successor and Titone's State Senate opponent had the worst attendance in the Council)against State Assemblyman and Vincent Ignizio, a Vito protege.

Manny, the head of IT for the City of Yonkers (Talk about bad commutes), held a fundraiser last night on the Island. Steve, Janele and most Staten Island Democratic officeholders, activists and operatives were there.

Daniel is right, that a win here would help Democrats win other races in the forgotten borough (Although I appreciate Daniel not forgetting us). Ignizio, who ran unopposed for his Assembly spot, is being groomed to eventually succeed Fossella. Iggy defeated Manny for the Assembly seat in 04. Beating him in the council race will dampen his ambition and possibly give a southshore Democrat the courage to oppose him when runs for reelection to Albany.

The Council district is slightly more Democratic than that of the all Republican dominated Southshore Assembly because it includes New Springville which is mixed (New Springville became slightly less Democratic two days after election day when my wife and myself moved to the North Shore.)Manny should do better than he did against Iggy for City hall than for Albany just based on that.

Without the distractions of the Congressional and Presidential races of 04 for the Assembly or the Borough President, Mayoral and other Council races in Lanza's easy 2005 win over Craig Schlanger for this seat, the Island Democratic ground troops are all dedicated to helping Manny and that seems to be making a difference from anecdotal evidence.

The web address is Link Textmannyforcouncil.com

Phone number is (718)317-0206

Remember, a $25 donation is worth $125 because of matching funds.

I will modify this comment and post it as a blog entry as well.