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"Who was this guy, one of 2, with media tags not long before they took Alex yesterday," a person calling herself Kimberly Jo , referring to the arrest of YouTuber Alexander Zabel. 

"Creepy, Creepy, Creepy Creepy, Creepy! He sure did look nervous!!" Janice Munguia said.

"Police undercover," Barb Minnich Dumbauld suggested. 

"Looks like suspects shoes," Monique Aldama wrote.

That is, Salkowski's shoes looked to Aldama like those of the suspected perpetrator of Nancy Guthrie's disappearance, as shown in a security video recovered by investigators months ago. Sure. 

This ridiculous speculation about a Star reporter and photographer on the street near Guthrie's home for a brief period helps explain why YouTube livestreamers have occasionally been hanging around Guthrie's home months after she was reported missing Feb. 1.

The livestreams would not exist without their interactive, online audiences.

The oft-repeated justification for their hours long YouTube gabfests is that they are keeping Guthrie's disappearance in the public eye, even working to solve the case. But what I think these overlapping groups of true-crime fans really find online is community. There's community in supporting their favorite streamers and community in their quixotic effort to solve a mystery. 

And since three of the streamers were detained or cited June 8, they're finding community in a heightened us-vs-them dynamic: Streamers and their followers against the sheriff's department, unhappy neighbors and legacy news media organizations. A rising new social power versus old, stodgy ones. 

As one streamer, nicknamed Mark the Shark, put it on a recent livestream by Alexander Zabel Jr., one of those arrested: "Pretty much mainstream media is only allowed to be up there but us YouTubers aren't allowed to be up there. Not only are we not allowed to be there but we'll get arrested, we'll get cited."

Who's a journalist?

, 54 and , 34 were arrested near Guthrie's house and booked into Pima County jail on Monday, June 8, and at the same time , 46, was cited and released. All were accused of causing a public nuisance and Zabel was also accused of obstructing a thoroughfare — all of these accusations misdemeanors.

Zabel was streaming on Thursday, June 11 when he was arrested again, a struggle with deputies leading to a felony resisting-arrest charge as well. 

"Every journalist in America should be speaking out against this," after he was cited. "When a government agency uses its power to restrict where reporters can stand, gather news, or document matters of public concern, it’s not just an attack on one reporter, it’s an attack on the First Amendment itself."

You won't find every journalist in Tucson speaking out about it, though, let alone every journalist in America.

That's in part because people working as professional journalists don't see what they're doing as real journalism. We don't hang out for hours on air, talking idly about whoever happens to pass by, wrapping those people publicly into scenarios about who harmed Nancy Guthrie.

We usually don't report on nothing happening. 

I don't say this to disparage citizen journalists as a category. Some of them do a good job. On the local scene, David Abie Morales, for example, offers encyclopedic coverage of many public meetings on that I find valuable. 

'Minimize harm'

The arrests raise real First Amendment issues, but it strikes me, from a more traditional perspective that it wouldn't have come to that if the streamers adhered to anything like journalistic standards. 

Traditional journalists wouldn't obsess publicly over a neighbor who doesn't like us the way the streamers have over a neighbor named Sue Ellen. But she has become a feature of many of the streams, targeted repeatedly because she has opposed their presence.

Zabel has had several conflicts with neighbors. After his second arrest, he posted the name of a neighbor and accused her indirectly of calling the police on him before the second arrest.

"What are you and your husband hiding??" he asked

On May 24, a neighbor walking by with a young child told Zabel he should "get out of here." Zabel, two hours into what would be a five-hour livestream, launched into a profane tirade against him. 

"F--- you, you look like the perp," Zabel concluded.

It often comes back to that. If a person crosses the streamers, or simply crosses their camera view, they become the subject of idle, public speculation and accusations in the community, as Salkowski was. 

This runs counter to one of the four : "Minimize harm."

"Balance the public’s need for information against potential harm or discomfort. Pursuit of the news is not a license for arrogance or undue intrusiveness."

'Intrusiveness' subjective 

Concepts like "undue intrusiveness" are subjective, but I suspect they are the reason why concern about the arrests has been muted, limited largely to the streamer communities. I know from 31 years of experience that intrusiveness is essential to journalism, but not being a jerk unnecessarily goes a long way toward keeping the peace.

Still, the fact that streamers don't fit the traditional conception of a "journalist" doesn't mean the streamers aren't protected by the First Amendment. Beyond freedom of the press, of course, that amendment guarantees freedom of speech and freedom of assembly for everyone. 

And it does concern me that complaints from neighbors led, finally, to arrests. That's not because I'm sure all these arrests were wrong — though I'm all but certain that at least one case will be dismissed — but because I can imagine situations in which this principle could be abused. 

So, I'm glad that the streamers have been able some money for legal defenses. The cases against Zabel, Bradshaw and Enderle deserve a strong First Amendment-based challenge.

But they should also consider the values of the stodgy old institutions they are challenging, like not publicly airing petty and baseless speculation and accusations against people who pass by.