The problem with ham radio in a crisis like this -- where we are all just sitting home "reporting" -- as opposed to providing real public service is the same problem a newspaper editor has -- sifting through the reports and figuring out what's real, what's an outlier event -- in short, what really happened.
I lived in Minnesota for about 35 years. I have friends there and, accordingly, my Facebook account is full of first hand stories just as I would be flooded by them if I was still there and monitoring the 2m repeater traffic (I could hear the most prominent Twin Cities' repeaters from my home miles away).
Right now, as I type this, there's a developing story. There is, of course, looting going on.
But, who is behind it? Is it random stuff or is it organized and if so, by whom?
I know just enough people there to have seen a surprising number of posts that are either first or second hand that clearly show a lot of white people doing looting in what is being reported nationally as race riots. There are claims that certain white supremacist groups deliberately showed up as what amounts to provocateurs (there has been internet chatter about doing so for months, supposedly).
The thing is, it is very hard to sort it all out. It could be "all of the above" -- random black looters, random white looters, organized looters (white, maybe black?). It will probably take months to sort it out. It's not even clear that the current set of arrests tell the story properly so that we know the proper proportions of who did what and even if one of the groups in question (if all of them even exist) had an outsided influence on what is happening. For all I know, we may find some mixed race gang no one has heard about had a lot to do with it. I suppose that's not terribly likely, but when all you see is random photos and posts from random people, who can really say what the truth is? They aren't reporters. They're just people with cell phones.
The national press is, again as I type this, still trying to sort it out as well. The possibility of outside groups is being covered, fitfully, as well. It's behind my Facebook feed, but it also looks like the presence of an editor is probably getting a better, more accurate look overall. Maybe.
In a maelstrom like this, unless we organize the traffic and the reporting, we are more likely than not to get it wrong.
Police understand this. Witness stories often contradict each other. There are pretty famous exercises where someone with a gorilla suit or something walks into a criminal justice class, does a few things and leaves, and then the class (this is all an exercise of course) collects each others statements. Was the gorilla wearing a shirt? Was it red or green? Et cetera.
It was famously said that "the Internet doesn't have an editor." This is a moment that cries out for one.