The citizen videographer's quandary

by Jarrett Martineau | December 4, 2007 at 12:41 pm | 392 views | add comment

I'm surprised that I haven't seen this commentary earlier. Paul Pritchard's now infamous video footage of the final minutes before Robert Dziekanski's death at YVR last month catalyzed global public outrage at the RCMP's handling of the situation thanks, simply, to Mr. Pritchard being in the 'right place at the right time'...with a video camera.

Certainly in an age where cameras and camera-phones are ubiquitous in our culture, nearly anyone could find themselves in a similar position to Mr. Pritchard: in the midst of breaking news and being able to document it.

But the misnomer 'citizen journalism' seems to suggest that ordinary citizens are spending their days patrolling the streets in hopes of usurping mainstream news organizations by documenting viral video footage of the Next Big News Story.

And this is decidedly not the case.

The shifting concept of "News" is now more appropriately expanding to include not only a vast multiplicity of views and voices, but also news 'reporting' from those who never intended to be journalists but who happen, synchronistically, to find themselves as eyewitnesses to events and who are able to document those events long before the "Journalists" arrive.

If you were in Mr. Pritchard's position, what would you have done?

It's a cliché that journalism isn't always done by invitation, and the figure of the nosy reporter and photographer is well known. But there are still few accepted notions about citizen journalism, a field in which the technology of digital video cameras and camera phones has outpaced conventions on when ordinary people should – and shouldn't – film.

[...]

"What is the motivation when someone starts filming?" muses Alfred Hermida, a 16-year veteran of the BBC who is now an assistant professor at the University of British Columbia School of Journalism. "What causes someone to take that camera out? Is it to say, `I was here and I took this video?'"

Hermida is fascinated by the growth of citizen journalism, which he saw increase exponentially while he was an editor of the BBCnews.com website.

"My anecdotal evidence is that people do this ... to say, `I was part of history.' I think once you've filmed it, you start thinking about what you got on tape." But the initial urge is probably not an altruistic one, he says.

Hermida warns that ordinary people can sometimes go too far in pursuing a YouTube-ready clip. He tells of a fire that broke out at an oil depot. The BBC began receiving cellphone video of the raging fire, setting off fears people were getting too close to the flames.

Even when the footage is in hand and seems to establish "what really happened," it may be interpreted in different ways. The Rodney King tape was used both to prosecute the police charged with his assault and in their defence.

"The term `citizen journalist' is a misnomer," says Hermida. "Most of the time (citizen video) provides a snapshot of an event – it doesn't capture what went before it and what went after. That snapshot can be incredibly valuable. It can raise the profile of an issue." He points to how the video of Dziekanski's death galvanized outrage at the RCMP. "That probably wouldn't have happened (otherwise)."