(A solo blogger setting up her own stand-up on the RNC floor.)

I will admit to feeling a bit inferior this week at the RNC. I am an independent documentarian with no real budget doing my best to find my unique story at the RNC. 15,000 media from all over the world are at the convention. The big networks will spend hundreds of thousands of dollars and have large teams of people working together to produce the news.

Today as I prepared to interview a quite serious delegate with a large plastic cheese head; he said: “wow, you guys are prepared.” I was shocked, I had stripped down my gear to the bare minimum, a camera, mic, and mono pod. I had a tiny light since my bigger light disappeared in one of the endless security screenings. I did not in my opinion look very professional. I realized though that I was actually technologically ahead of the others around me who had just finished with the delegate. This week I have seen citizen journalist with small consumer video cameras- even iPhones capturing their stories. These journalist don’t need big corporate budgets and sponsors, they only needed a few hundred dollars and some guts to come and cover one of the biggest stories of the year. No longer do we need to rely on a big corporate networks for our news. Bloggers with nothing more than a laptop, telephone and an inquisitive mind have broken some of the biggest stories of the past decade. Journalism has become democratized like never before. We help keep the media honest and tell stories that otherwise wouldn’t be told. The range and diversity of perspective have never been bigger.

Kudos to the RNC for allowing the independent press and documentarians tremendous access. One request: next time try to give us some closer seats!