Ryan Schuessler, a freelance journalist who has been covering the demonstrations in Ferguson, Mo., for Al Jazeera America, wrote a blog post today about how he won’t be returning to Ferguson tonight and the reasons why: “The behavior and number of journalists there is so appalling, that I cannot in good conscience continue to be a part of the spectacle,” he writes.
Among those incidents Schussler cites in his blog post are (shockingly) “Journalists making the story about them.” He concludes:
There are now hundreds of journalists from all over the world coming to Ferguson to film what has become a spectacle. I get the sense that many feel this is their career-maker. In the early days of all this, I was warmly greeted and approached by Ferguson residents. They were glad that journalists were there. The past two days, they do not even look at me and blatantly ignore me. I recognize that I am now just another journalist to them, and their frustration with us is clear. In the beginning there was a recognizable need for media presence, but this is the other extreme. They need time to work through this as a community, without the cameras.
