How the Rodney King Beating Video Changed Citizen Journalism

April 30, 2012 Leave a comment

This week marks the 20th anniversary of the Los Angeles Riots, which resulted in 54 deaths, thousands of injuries,  nearly a US$1 billion in property damages and a renewed discussion on American race relations.  This was all sparked by a private citizen named George Holliday, who videotaped Rodney King’s encounter with the Los Angeles police on his Sony Handycam.  The blurry video turned what would have otherwise been a little known scuffle into a worldwide media sensation.

Particularly, the case highlighted the allegations of racial profiling and police brutality within African-American communities.  As a matter of fact, Holliday said he tried to reach the Los Angeles Police Department to find out what had happened to King. When he was unable to get answers, he contacted his local TV news station, KTLA, and sold his video to them for US$500.

During the riots, there were also other citizen journalists, like Timothy Goldman, a then unemployed former Air Force officer, who videotaped the violence, including the beating of white truck driver Reginald Denny.

The videos were revolutionary at the time because this happened long before YouTube, Twitter and the Internet in general came into existence.  Without these videos, history would have reflected differently today.

A few days ago King reflected on the significance of the videotape and the Trayvon Martin case.

“I’m hoping he [Trayvon] gets justice for his family, ’cause he’s no longer here, so for his family,” he said, adding, “Luckily, I got [my attack] seen on tape.”

When King said this, it made us think about the initial reaction to Martin’s murder.  When the Martin case first gained mainstream media attention, we were actually looking for a video, a photo or some kind of strong documentation online that showed the altercation between Martin and shooter George Zimmerman.

In this age of everything being caught on video and distributed throughout social media, we automatically expected that there was a video of Martin’s shooting somewhere on YouTube.  This isn’t because we have a creepy desire to see someone’s gruesome death, but we could have used a video to see evidence of what really happened that night, which would have help bring justice to the case.  The only circumstantial evidence is the 911 call, which has also come into question for its credibility.

So this is why Holliday plays such an important role in this case and its impact in mobilizing citizen journalism.

According to Holliday, he met face to face with King several years after the beating. They ran into each other at a gas station one night. As Holliday describes it, “He says, ‘Yeah, you don’t recognize me.’ And I said, ‘No,’ and he says, ‘Yeah, you saved my life.’ And so then I knew who he was.”

Filed under Accountability/Transparency, Americas, Video, YouTube Tagged with , , , , ,

E-Waste & Doing Better Green Business

April 23, 2012 Leave a comment

This post is part of Global Wire Associates’ Recharge E-Waste Campaign.

Global Wire Associates Founder Talia Whyte originally wrote this post on Global Wire’s companion blog.

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about how to be “more green” in our everyday lives, and in particular how to improve the global economy. In the last year, I have looked at the ways my company Global Wire Associates and my freelance journalism workoperate and how I can create a smaller carbon footprint.

As a new media consulting firm, Global Wire Associates is in the business of using technology. However, with the growing problem of e-waste, we felt that it was our responsibility to use electronics with more mindfulness. According to the United Nations Environmental Programme, it is estimated that 20-50 million tons of discarded electronics are dumped into landfills around the world, mostly in developing countries, every year. Electronics include old mobiles, televisions, microwaves, computers and more. However, most of the time it’s not because these gadgets are broken; they’re being dumped in favor of newer versions.

Landfills with e-waste create serious problems in the long run. Toxic chemicals in electronics can leach into the land over time or are released into the atmosphere, creating severe health and environmental hazards in nearby communities.

Even if you take your old electronics to recycling sites, there is no guarantee they will be recycled properly. This is partly because it is expensive and labor-intensive to properly recycle e-waste in many developed countries, as most environmental laws in these countries require e-recyclers to use environmentally friendly processes.

So, for the last year, my company decided that when it is time to purchase any new equipment – cameras, computers, mobiles – we made sure that old or broken equipment was repairable first. We also donate old electronics that are not deemed useful for our purposes to other needy individuals or organizations. Before we consider making new purchases, we try to buy older but usable models whenever possible. If the electronics are beyond repairable, we properly recycle them.

Not only are we doing our little part to save the health of the planet and its people, but it has also made us feel really good about ourselves and wanting to extend our enthusiasm with others. So this year we launched our Recharge E-Waste campaign to make others aware of the global tech waste problem. We not only plan to use our website to have discussions about proper recycling, donating and/or selling of used electronics, and turning electronics into art and design models, but we are also seriously thinking about launching an e-waste management initiative later this year.

Our green awareness has also extended to other areas in our operations, like doing more web conferencing with clients instead of traveling, cloud computing and using green office supplies. Of course, I also use recycled cameras for my freelance video journalistic gigs. Sometimes it’s the smallest things that can make a big difference in our world.

Filed under Accountability/Transparency, E-Waste, Entrepreneurship, Video Tagged with , , , ,

#18DaysInEgypt Revolutionizes Multimedia Documentaries

January 23, 2012 Leave a comment

Upon the first anniversary of the Egyptian revolution, a group of journalists and technologists have come up with an innovative way to document the historic events from the last few months online.  18DaysInEgypt is a new online, group storytelling module that allows anyone to submit any digital media they created while witnessing the beginnings of the Arab Spring.  Instead of filming a traditional documentary, 18DaysInEgypt co-founders Jigar Mehta and Yasmin Elayat are using their private beta site, Groupstre.am, to solicit submissions of tweets, video, pictures and other media to create an interactive product.

Participants can go to the website and register their own account or “stream” and invite friends in their online social circles to participate by submitting their own media to tell a story in a slideshow module.  Participants can also add tags and map locations for easier navigation.  Viewers are able to look at the stream and see other streams that took place at the same time or at the same location.  So far, many of the streams represent an array of the Egyptian experience, ranging from press freedom, women’s rights to even some underwater humor.  Pretty cool, right!

This project is supported by the Tribeca New Media Fund, and Mehta and Elayat are hoping to fully launch Groupstre.am in the next few months.

Filed under Entrepreneurship, Facebook, Films and filmmaking, Flickr, Middle East, Online Journalism, Twitter, Video, YouTube Tagged with , , , , , , , , ,

How Online Video Has Changed The Way Race Is Discussed Today

January 16, 2012 1 Comment

Today Americans will mark the birthday of the late civil rights leader Dr. Martin Luther King Jr with a series of memorial breakfasts, panel discussions and workshops on how U.S. race relations have evolved since his assassination.  Most would say that there have been many improvements.  According to a recent Gallup poll, “more Americans believe U.S. race relations have gotten better rather than worse with Barack Obama’s election as president.”

However, recent events such as the controversies around President Obama’s birth certificate and new U.S. television program “All-American Muslim” would suggest otherwise.  The surge in social media allows anyone to use the medium to combat racial and ethnic stereotyping and discrimination.  With the use of online video specifically, more people are using innovative storytelling tactics to start these discussions.  Currently on YouTube, there is a series of funny, yet thought-provoking videos called “Sh*t Girls Say” made by both amateur and professional videographers addressing racial attitudes, like the above video made by Iraqi actress Tamara Dhia.

Another video in the series that has taken off is “Sh*t White Girls Say…to Black Girls” by New York video blogger Franchesca Ramsey, which is based on comments made to her by other white females.  Ramsey said in a recent interview that she was hoping to get high viewer hits at first.

“I saw other videos in the series become popular online,” she said.  “I thought they were funny, but I couldn’t relate to them or see myself in them.”

This video garnered five million hits in one week, and sparked a larger online discussion.  Ramsey says she has received both positive and negative emails from others who wanted to discuss the meaning behind the video.

Filmmaker Issa Rae also felt that she wasn’t represented as a black woman in mainstream media.  After reading yet another article about the lack of African-Americans onscreen, she decided to be the media and do her own online webisodes about being “awkward,” and, thus, the name of her series “The Mis-Adventures of Awkward Black Girl.”

“This is the future, especially for minority content producers on the Internet,” she said in a recent CNN interview.  “This is the way to go.  There is no gatekeeper.  You can release whatever content you want.  I think this is the best route to take, honestly.”

Filed under Americas, Films and filmmaking, Video, YouTube Tagged with , , , , , , , , , , ,

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