Thursday, January 18, 2007

YouReport

  There’s a new watchdog in town, and it’s you.  Yes, you, with your video-capturing cell phone.  Who would’ve guessed that Time’s Person of the Year would also be leading the pack in news journalism?  When news happens, you are there, quick to draw your cell-cam and capture for the world events that may otherwise go unnoticed.  When Saddam was hanged, you were there.  When Kramer’s career went down in flames, you were there.  When an Iranian-American student was unjustly tasered in the UCLA library, you were there.  When news happens, you are there, ensnaring the events that shape our world in your tangled web of grainy video and garbled sound. 

  Of course, in the days following the execution of Saddam Hussein, cell phone video of the hanging swept across the web like a California brushfire. The video has been condemned as much for its existence as for its content, which shows the taunting of the former dictator on the gallows and a post-mortem clip reveals a gruesome, gaping wound on his neck.  Authorities are now calling for the prosecution of the man who captured the footage, in a classic case of “shooting the messenger.”  Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, speaking at a press conference on Monday in Ramallah, said that she hopes those responsible for the video will be punished. “We were disappointed that there was not greater dignity give to the accused under these circumstances,” she said.  Let me remind you that, if not for the fear of terrorist attacks, the hanging would’ve happened in a soccer stadium in front of at least 10,000 cheering fans.  “I hope that those who are responsible for the way that came out will indeed be punished,” Rice said.

  I think that video, which I haven’t seen, was a good thing—not because I enjoy the macabre, but because it immediately subverts any conspiracy theories that would have immediately began to swirl.  “Saddam is alive and well in Acapulco,” or “The execution was actually staged by the Baathist Saddam loyalists, who released him, and now he’s living in Bahrain with Michael Jackson,” or “That fat guy in a ski mask was really Elvis Presley.”  The cell phone video eventually made public the hanging that was originally going to be public.

  The Hussein video may be the highest-profile among a recent rash of phone-captured news, but it is certainly not alone.  It’s quite possible that racist tirade unleashed by Michael Richards (a.k.a. Kramer) wouldn’t have been the news story it was if it hadn’t been captured on an audience member’s cell phone. 

  Week after week, we are seeing more of these videos make their way to television news, and they are almost always shocking.  And while most people don’t carry around a video camera at all times, most people do have cell phones.  According to a recent study by InfoTrends and The Yankee Group, about 70 percent of Americans have cell phones, and about a fourth of those have video capability.  Of the estimated 55.5 million cell phone users with video, one-third claim they use it at least once a week. 

  Overall, that’s almost 6 percent of Americans who use their cell phone video recorders once a week, and that number will only rise as video-capable phones fall into more hands.  We certainly haven’t seen the end of this trend. 

  Keep those phones handy, and when news happens, you’ll be there.

 -From Pulse
   January 18, 2007

0 comments: