The Christian Science Monitor is a fine publication - but they got it all wrong in a piece out today entitled, "What YouTube doesn't show." I would have thought CS Monitor above this kind of if-you-can't-beat-em'-smear-em tactic, but I can't say I'm surprised. YouTube is emerging as the remedy to corporate media's complete failure to ask the tough questions and speak for the people - and that is bound to rattle some cages. Especially when it starts putting a dent in the power and pocketbooks of the 800 pound gorillas kicking back in those cages.
The subtitle of the piece reads:
YouTube spread news of Florida's Taser incident fast. But instant media doesn't always tell the whole story.
That's rich. As though Fox, USA Today or any other corporate media outlet always tells the whole story. That's such a laughably flawed statement that I'm surprised it made it past the editor. Instant media (which every news outlet on the planet seems to be trying to emulate in terms of speed these days) doesn't try or intend to tell the whole story. They're video clips for crying out loud! Unlike the mainstream media outlets that often do claim to be telling the whole story - and in an unbiased way at that. It's an absurd comparison.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, how many are conveyed by a video tape? Whatever the number, it is not always enough to understand the situation.
So we're to be prevailed upon to believe that YouTube, with its virtually unlimited capacity for the number of videos it can hold and much less constrained length of those videos - uploaded mostly by average folks like you and me at the scene - are going to provide a less complete picture of things compared to broadcast media? How many amateur videos of that University of Florida incident are there? If only we'd had a Fox News camera crew there we'd know God's own truth of exactly what happened there that fateful day!
That will not stop many people from rushing to judgment based on what they think they know.
Sage words, Mr. Jett. Good thing you're above ever doing anything like that and, say, publishing it in the Christian Science Monitor. If only people would rush to judgment based on what they think they don't know. Or crawl slowly toward judgment based on what they do know, but don't realize they know. Now that would be ideal. At exactly what point did you deem it appropriate to form the opinions you're expressing here? And exactly how much information did you feel you had to accumulate and process before what you thought you knew became what you truly know - in your estimation?
Their views are formed more by the media stampede and their own biases than by what really happened. And that says a lot about how people react and how information is used today.
And this phenomenon of the human race is suddenly unique to YouTube how? This has no doubt been the case since the first prehistoric news hack painted his first big story on a cave wall during the Upper Paleolithic. I don't know how you manage to be a first-hand witness to all events that you form an opinion about, but folks like me are constrained by our physical bodies and things called time and space. Therefore we glean what we can from what we have determined to be reliable sources and then form our opinions based on that.
As the story spread, many people formed a firmly held opinion.
Damn those pesky many people! How dare they form an opinion - let alone a firmly held one! - as the story is still spreading!
I also had an opinion on the event...
You don't say?
...but my perspective was unique.
Well of course it was! Do you really think any of us lowly many people would think that our rushed, firmly-held opinions could possibly have been formed on as solid a basis as your omniscient, omnipresent perspective would allow? Perish the thought!
I was the moderator of Sen. Kerry's talk and the only other person on stage with him.
Oh, sweet! I'm glad I kept reading! So the key is that simple. I'll just be sure to land a stage role at the heart of every world event so that I don't have to rely on spurious media coverage and eyewitness accounts. Especially accounts caught on video tape. I'd rather have someone interpret for me what happened than be forced to rely on live video footage. Who knows what kind of judgments I might make if I actually saw what happened myself?
Take the case of Andrew Meyer, the University of Florida student who had a Taser used against him by campus police at a speech by Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts last month. Videotapes of the incident made the evening television news and immediately found their way onto YouTube.
The Florida Department of Law Enforcement was called in to investigate whether the actions of the officers were appropriate. Their 300-page report was recently turned over to university officials. (A summary of it is at www.president.ufl.edu/incident/.) The report concluded the officers acted "well within" their guidelines and also pointed out that the student had provoked an earlier disturbance on campus.
Wow - what complete idiots all we gullible many people have been! Why didn't we wait until the completely unbiased, 300-page report came to us via university officials from the Florida Department of Law Enforcement rather than rush to judgment based on eyewitness accounts and multiple video clips of what happened? So that kid wasn't actually being knocked down, sat on and roughed up by four cops and Tased repeatedly while screaming and pleading for mercy and help. Obviously those video clips and all those eyewitnesses must have gotten it wrong somehow. No seriously! The report says so!
The really great part?
In a letter released October 29, Mr. Meyer publicly apologized for his "failure to act calmly" during the speech and admitted he had "stepped out of line" and was truly sorry for tarnishing the university's image.
That doesn't begin to portray the tone and content of Meyer's letter. It was an abject, groveling plea for mercy. I wasn't halfway through it when I couldn't have been persuaded to believe other than that this kid was blackmailed into writing this letter. Why should the authorities deal with repeat offenders when you can make an example of a kid like this, have your thugs beat the shit out of him, threaten him with who knows what afterward, get him to write a prostrate mea culpa - and then get the Christian Science Monitor to put out a piece like Mr. Jett's here. It's a complete coup for the Cheney/Rove/Bush/Kristol regime and their fear-mongering tactics of frightening U.S. citizens - especially those who might dare to engage their brains, ethics or morals - into self-censorship and trembling complicity in its tyranny.
I almost wonder if John P. Philbin didn't coach Karl Rove on writing this piece with the help of Bill Kristol.
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I agree, and I join you in your ire.
Strange to see that in the CSM, normally it really is a fine publication.
Posted by: Bpaul | October 31, 2007 at 04:07 PM
Thanks, Bpaul! It really is and I don't want to be too harsh on the CSM itself here. And Mr. Jett is certainly entitled to his opinion. I just take serious umbrage with his desire to deny us ours and to support The Authorities in doing the same. Thanks again - glad to have discovered your blog!
Posted by: Steve | October 31, 2007 at 05:27 PM
People like you make my point. You are entitled to your own opinion, but not entitled to your own facts. And pardon me for offering mine and let me apologize for disagreeing with the clueless.
Posted by: Dennis Jett | November 01, 2007 at 07:47 AM
Thank you for stopping by and for your comment, Mr. Jett.
I am happy to help further the point of your piece - though it certainly doesn't seem to be the point you intended. And you're right - I'm not entitled to my own facts. I'm only entitled to the facts. And I'm happy to seek them out and acknowledge them - whatever the source, be it corporate media or instant media.
I welcome your opinion anytime. You definitely made me think some things through. I am happy to admit that I am clueless about a great many things - and am humbled to discover more everyday. But I would much rather reveal my cluelessness in the course of seeking truth and speaking truth to power than to pretend, in a swipe at the general public and the most democratic media platform in history, that I know more than everyone else.
Posted by: Steve | November 01, 2007 at 12:04 PM
I do believe that, indeed, the man being tasered went there with the intent to cause problems and get them on videotape. He was manipulating us, his audience, from the get go.
I also believe that whether he was or not, the issues of our slowly evaporating freedoms and the abuse of force by our police need to be addressed, and if it takes showmanship and martyrdom, so be it.
The media will always pretend to represent public opinion instead of creating it, and issues like this will always be 'debunked' later.
The politics, music, sports- they are all the same now. They fill in the gaps between advertisements.
The news isn't even prevented from outright LYING, see also: Fox News, Monsanto, rBGH - the final ruling was that the FCC regulations concerning news "did not legally require the station to report the truth in a news story"
Posted by: Will Von Wizzlepig | November 01, 2007 at 01:58 PM
Thanks for your comment, Will. I agree completely. I feel like the people who are in tune with the larger trends of the loss of civil liberties, police brutality, censorship, etc. - and care about them! - see the big picture here. Those who don't are arguing the finer points of this single incident and doing all they can to "debunk" it so they can assuage their consciences and get back to their comfort zones.
I didn't know about the Fox News, Monsanto, rBGH story. I'll check it out!
Posted by: Steve | November 01, 2007 at 02:43 PM
The problem here isn't that a bunch of people aren't painfully aware of the screwed up state of affairs,
it's their complacent nature and patience for other people to bear the brunt of the reform effort- or, should I say, martyrdom-
that's what's wrong with us.
Not unlike the 1930's German citizenry, we are waiting and hoping someone else will come along and fix the big bad people and their plans.
It's not going to happen, kids.
Posted by: Will Von Wizzlepig | November 02, 2007 at 01:41 PM