You know what’s crazy?
I’ll tell you what’s crazy!
The uncensored insanity being broadcast in Iran and the growing sentiment that video journalism as we know it is dead.
The uncensored insanity being broadcast in Iran and the growing sentiment that video journalism as we know it is dead.
This question has been incubating for some time in newsrooms around the country. But like a kite in a tornado, exploding into the sky, this thought is now sailing hard and fast and furiously because of what is going on in Iran.
As most of you know by now, The Iranian election results from June 12th are announced and people go freaking nuts. Apparently the landslide victory for incumbent president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad is a SHAM, and the Iranian people say, enough all ready, let’s bust a move.
The anger is palpable and increases exponentially. Like crazed red army ants ready to ravage a picnic basket to its wicker core, the Iranian People take to the streets. To call this grass roots movement a protest is like calling the General Motors Bankruptcy a fianancial hiccup. The tone and tenor of the demonstrations are angry and violent and loud and dripping with the blood from decades of oppression.
Insurrection and chaos is typically perfect programming for 24 hour news gathering hubs like CNN and FOX as well as the other alphabet networks. It’s like lobbing a softball to Babe Ruth and letting him whack it out of the park. It’s what these networks do. They throw a ton of hardware and conventional news gathering bodies at a massacre and let them squeeze the wash cloth of all the news they can find.
Just one freaking huge problem. The press release didn’t mention that they would have to cover the demonstration from another time zone.
That’s right, all of the conventional journalists were tossed out of Iran on their fanny packs.
Then in the middle of this empty informational news vortex, something remarkable happens.
The people rise up from the dirt, from the streets of oppression, and in a massive, voluminous burst of technology, they begin documenting their own slice of history. They raise their cell phones and tiny cam corders and they begin recording the atrocity in the street.
Bullets are flying and the images are captured. Motorcycle cops wielding batons crush skulls and the cell phone imagery is beamed around the globe. The more the oppressive regime tries to shut the message down, the more the people post the insanity to the world through social networks like TWEETER AND FACEBOOK.
It’s like trying to squeeze Jello in your fist. The more pressure you apply, the more the gelatinous goo escapes to daylight.
The video that strikes a cord with me is the beautiful Iranian woman, lying in the street, blood pooling around her. One simple cell phone video has solidified the world’s contempt for the current regime and brutal tactics they will use to throttle the insurrection.
The video is everywhere. It documents the revolt from balconies above. The imagery documents the bloody rebellion from the streets below. As is often the case with cell phone footage, it is choppy and washed out. It lacks all of the bench marks of traditional video journalism, but the images are undeniable.
The world gobbles them up. They air on newscasts from France to America. It doesn’t matter what language the anchors speak, because the video needs little translation.
With the world’s mainstream journalists watching from the sideline, these civilian guerrilla reporters are the eyes and ears of the world.
The pictures are clandestine, shot expeditiously, on the run, like a drive by in South Central L.A.
Remember the old Vietnam footage where a camera man is running his ass off through a rice patty while bullets fly all around him. Well much of the footage is like this. It is compelling and hard not to watch.
As I inhale the incessant flood of visuals, I wonder to myself, Is Journalism as we know it dead?
Opinions are like you know A**holes. Everyone has one right?
Ask me and I say; Broadcasting is changing, but its’ not dead.
In my estimation, the the advent of this technology has turned witnesses into witnesses with means to document what they are witnessing.
But in my mind, here is where the crude guerrilla journalists are just that, guerrilla. Their pictures are raw and their message sometimes convoluted. It takes experts to analyze the information and put it in perspective.
It’s like pepper. A little goes a long way. Sprinkle it on a Filet Mignon and enjoy. But pour a mound onto your fist and snort it up your nose and get ready to belch fire. Its too much, too overwhelming, and without the right filter, difficult to grasp.
The visuals pouring out of this angry land are being uploaded to cyberspace much like a network sends stories over the satellite to affiliate stations around the country.
At abc they have a satellite service known as News 1. It puts stories from all over the world on the “bird” and affiliate stations pull those stories down and then choose to air them locally.
The video is always accompanied by a script describing who people are and what they are saying. There are leads ins for anchors and copy where reporters talk over pictures and even the interview subject’s words are printed out.
The stories have direction and a logical procession of facts and supporting video.
This is not the case in Iran where video is raw pepper being blasted up my nose.
I applaud the guerrilla journalists fighting to get their message to the world. But I also say to the broadcast doomers and gloomers; JOURNALISM ISN’T DEAD, NOT YET!
Hold off on your pronouncements of the king’s death.
Just because books were printed and libraries were erected to house those books, teachers didn’t disappear.
Instead of shouting to the masses and educating them through the oral word and repetition, they embraced the written word. Teachers flourished using a new tool; it’s called a book.
People also wrote books and educated each other. The key is, the tool changed, and the experts adapted to more properly tell their story.
So what do I think is crazy?
To think that raw video in the hands of a cell phone wielding citizen might kill a profession that has weathered the invention of the printing press, radio, television, and now the iphone.
Don’t fear the future, embrace it, and learn a new dance.