Wow! Those intrepid citizen journalists!

It proved nigh impossible to stop watching cable TV coverage of the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina last night, and now at least two broadcast networks are devoting an hour of prime time to the disaster tonight. Still, there’s one story, covered during every recent crisis, that we could do without: the “citizen journalist” story. You know, the one in which journalists who are paid to cover big stories express amazement at those plucky everyday folks who record the chaos around them using video, cell-phone cameras and their blogs and—wow!—post it on the Internet.