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
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
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
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