Video site scooped the journalism star
Could YouTube founders Chad Hurley and Steve Chen become this generation's version of Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein, the famed newspaper reporters who broke the Watergate scandal?
Probably not, but their site has quickly become a competitor to investigative journalists everywhere. There used to be a time when people with information about corporate misdeeds, government corruption or police brutality would go to CNN, The Washington Post or their local newspaper. Now, who needs traditional media when anyone can just film wrongdoers in action and post it online?
Citizen journalists illustrated their growing power this weekend when a tourist videotaped Patrick Pogan, a New York City policeman, body slamming a bicyclist in what appears to be an unprovoked attack. On Sunday, the videographer posted it to YouTube. Sure there were also eyewitnesses, but the video may prove most damning for it differs dramatically with what the officer said happened in his report.
The policeman has been assigned to desk duty and the department has launched an investigation. Once again, YouTube has handed individual members of the public the ability to challenge a version of events presented by a powerful entity.
When one reflects on the controversies in this country's history that sprang from information obtained by average citizens, it's clear most of them were delivered to the public after first being filtered through a major news organization or government body.
The leaking of the Pentagon Papers by Daniel Ellsberg; the film of President John Kennedy's assassination taken by Abraham Zapruder, the police beating of motorist Rodney King videotaped by George Holliday.
Had those events occurred now, it's possible some of them would have ended up on YouTube. Would the reaction have been the same? For years, Zapruder and some news organizations refused to show the scene of Kennedy's head being blown apart. The public didn't see the films in their entirety until 1975, 12 years after Kennedy's death.
Did that decision spare an already demoralized public even more shock? Or did it rob them of the opportunity to learn everything about the death of their president?
"In the old world, (traditional media) used to be the gatekeepers," said Geneva Overholser, director of the School of Journalism at the University of Southern California and a former Ombudsman at The Washington Post. "The fact is those gates have been torn down...We have to figure out how to use the new tools of new media and how to work with citizens who are producing this kind new journalism."
The video-sharing phenomenon has emerged at a time when much of the public is mistrustful of the information provided by the government and professional news organizations. Some have turned to blogs and message boards for news. But YouTube, like no other site, has earned a reputation for providing citizen journalists with a podium that has the potential to reach millions across the globe.
The rewards of enabling individuals to report the news is easy to see. Corruption, brutality, and injustice have been exposed in situations where members of traditional media weren't around.
Government crackdowns in Burma and Tibet meant foreign journalists were often unable to get footage of the civil unrest in those countries. Sure enough, the world could see what was happening at YouTube, where witnesses posted videos.
A policeman near St. Louis suggested that he could send Brett Darrow, 20, to jail on trumped up charges. While Darrow's car-mounted video camera was rolling, the officer shouted: "Do you want to go to jail for some (expletive) reason I come up with?" And later he added: "I don't really care about your cameras."
It's probably safe to say the officer does now. He was later fired.
But was he right when he said he could he have successfully railroaded Darrow? Would anyone have believed Darrow had he been without the video? Would the police department have been under as much pressure to take action if Darrow had only gone to the local paper or TV station with the video?
The other side of the argument is that someone could misuse the power provided by YouTube and the Internet to distribute false information. Videotape has been tampered with before. And even when it's not, it can still be used to inflict damage.
A young woman on a train in South Korea refuses to clean up her dog's poop. Someone videotapes the event and the woman becomes a figure of contempt on the Web and known as "The Dog Poop Girl." She's stalked and ridiculed by angry Internet users and eventually the public condemnation forces her to quit school and go into hiding.
Providing audiences with verification of stories produced by unknowns could be an important contribution for traditional media, said Overholser.
She said that newspapers and local TV stations can also provide context, gather interviews and flush out stories produced by non professionals. That's what the New York Post did after the body-slamming NYPD video surfaced. The Post was quick to post a report on their Web site that included the officer's name, what he said in his report (that the bicyclist ran him over) and that he was a third-generation policeman.
"I would argue that when something likes this appears on Youtube," Overholser said, "and I see stories about it at Washingtonpost.com or Latimes.com, I would like it to mean that the papers have verified that the videotape is legitimate."
Greg Sandoval covers media and digital entertainment for CNET News. He is a former reporter for The Washington Post and the Los Angeles Times. E-mail Greg, or follow him on Twitter at http://twitter.com/sandoCNET. 
Journalism is not a hobby and it's not an activity that one performs on weekends. It's a profession. Posting a video on YouTube is not, by any means, journalism. Clicking "upload" isn't the same as interviewing, researching, writing and reporting.
While video-sharing sites and amateur blogs are providing a voice for just about anyone, journalists will remain. Bloggers can, and do, write whatever they want to. It's mostly commentary. Journalists can't do this, and that's the difference.
Mr. Sandoval writes, "When one reflects on the controversies in this country's history that sprang from information obtained by average citizens, it's clear most of them were delivered to the public after first being filtered through a major news organization or government body. "
"Filtered" sounds like censorship, but in fact, what you call "filtered" is actually providing the viewer, reader or listener with as many facts and points-of-view as possible. The goal: find the truth or give users of media the information to form their own viewpoints.
The video of the officer knocking down the bicyclist tells just one story. But it will be up to the media to give me, hopefully, the truth about the video.
Don't get me wrong. The officer looks like a bully and should be fired if he broke the law or department rules.
But consider... Perhaps the officer knew the bike-rider as a suspect in a crime. Maybe he was told to leave the event and was caught trying to take part in it. He could have threatened the officer off-camera. Was the bicyclist carrying a visible weapon? We don't know and without a journalist we never will.
Your comments hold very true, and I agree that blogging and YouTube is not exactly Journalism in the traditional sense.
The problem is we have not been getting the whole stories, we have not been hearing or seeing news from all perspectives. The near unilateral lack of media investigation and exposure surrounding events of 9-11 come to mind first off. The complete a total media blackout of the initial videos from that fateful day, remains in place today, and the pathetic excuse of it being too tramatic for the public, is an insult to the intelligence of society.
Remember Vietnam? It was broadcast on the news almost nightly, in brutal detail much more than even exists for 9-11, which lead this country to stand up and speak out against the war. Its obvious that those who seek to gain from war, have used their influence to ensure that this does not happen again. Our citizens, our soldiers, our children are killing and dying over there for what reason? The single perspective provided by our mass media and nation's administration?
The major media outlets are not diverse, they are in fact but a few monopolized media corperations whose immediate goal is ratings, and money, not informing the public. Just a stab at the numbers I would estimate that 80% of the newspapers circulated in this country are owned and controlled by only a handful of media corperations, and a little known fact is that it does require direct presidential approval to print and circulate a newspaper, which turns what used to be thought of as a right, into a priviledge that can be revoked.
The same percentages can be said about broadcast radio, and television. That pretty much covers the mass media.
The Internet with its free for all, mosh pit of information, whether true, false, misleading or offensive, is a form of Journalism in the basic sense, it is capable journaling or chronicling the views and events of society without regard to rating or money or fame. It can present many more perspectives and views than any other media outlet will ever be capable of. It can become a collective intelligence for all society, provided it remains free of restrictions that even now threaten to reign it under control of the few.
Yes you will have to check for the facts, and disseminate from the opinions, speculations, and outright lies, but I do not trust the major media anymore than the Internet. At least with the Internet I have known better than to trust it without checking the sources and the facts, whereas so many of us have trusted major media only to be decieved with propoganda, and political or economic agendas.
Journalism in the traditional sense that you refer to requires a Journalist, that Journalist needs to be paid for their work, and desrves to be paid, which requires the news must make money, somehow. It is free for anyone to upload to YouTube, thus removing that 'filter' which restricts most of the actual reality of todays society from ever becoming news, but is a much more accurate picture of life, lies included.
Your consideration of the bicyclist video is not even close to Journalism, it is again poor speculation. Careful review of the facts can tell you that the officer is clearly in the wrong. Officers are required to know and use specific hand signals for traffic control. Motorists, bicyclists and pedestrians are required by law to obey those signals over and above traffic control, devices. The officer clearly did not give any such signal to the bicyclist, criminal suspect or not. The officers report directly contradicts the events that had taken place, if the bicyclist was a criminal suspect, or had been asked to leave the event and refused, or even if the the bicyclist had provoked the officer in some way, why would the police report not reflect this? Why was it falsified? Why did the officer not feel justified in his actions to place the truth in his report? Journalism will tell us, but without this new medium of Free communication like YouTube, and the Internet in general, would we have ever even known of this event, in order to ask what is the truth?
Still a great story (notwithstanding my picking).
Good example is that Palestinian children names are never given but Israeli troops you get to know they names and family memers and almost their blood type.
Really sick if you ask me.
- by johnthedj July 31, 2008 9:01 AM PDT
- Give it up? Traditional media is dead. We no longer need corparations spoon feeding us. As far as content fake or misused. Mainstream media does that daily... Editing peoples interviews to suit thier needs and only reporting favorable stories to thier own distorted purposes.. The independent press died when Bill Clinton allowed the owning of more than one TV station. Thank god, youtube and other sites like it are poping up daily. Usauly, when something is uncurpted and impartial it leads you to deciede if it's real. Corpartions are money hungry machines and want to control everything. Independent media last only a short time till they figure out how to shut it down or destroy it by pushing buttons of politicians who will pass a law shutting it down or simply buy it and limit it's impact as with CNET.... Before this news site was bought by mainstream media it had better stories is all I'm saying..
- Reply to this comment
-
(8 Comments)