"Can we all just get along?": Rodney King and the Birth of Citizen Journalism!

To many people the concept of Citizen Journalism is relatively new, and is closely tied with Social Media. It's the image of people shooting video of crimes and natural disasters with their cell phones, and then posting it online for millions of people to see.

However, many of us forget Citizen Journalism started way before Social Media was a buzzword, and way before the internet was in most people's living rooms.

20-years ago, a Black man in Los Angeles named Rodney King was beaten by a group of White police officers. The beating was captured on a camcorder by George Holliday, who lived near where the beating took place. In my opinion, that was the moment Citizen Journalism was born.

King's beating initially made its way onto local LA television, and then to the international media. It led to a trial where the LAPD officers were acquited, which then sparked riots in April 1992 that saw LA burn.

The 1991 video of several cops striking Rodney King with batons not only inspired race riots in 1992, it inspired millions of people to pick up a camcorder and film anything they found unusual or unjust. It inspired them to then try and get a local TV station to play their video on air - be it a cop beating, UFO sighting or natural disaster. Citizen Journalism was born.

Nowadays, the camcorders have been replaced by cell phones. The rush to the TV station has largely been replaced by a rush to post on Social Media sites such as YouTube, Facebook, and Flickr. Citizen Journalism proliferates and matures.

Without this, we wouldn't have known the full truth behind Robert Dziekanski's police tasering death. More recently, we wouldn't have seen the devastating amateur footage of the Japanese tsunami.

For all its benefits and faults, Citizen Journalism has helped mainstream journalists keep public authorities accountable when reporters aren't there to capture it all. And it started on a fateful night in 1991!

Doing Peter Chao No Favour! Mudaf*cka!

The picture you see is from about a year ago when a colleague and I bumped into controversial YouTube stud, Peter Chao, in Vancouver's Chinatown. He was on our station a week later for his first ever mainstream media interview - months before the Georgia Straight newspaper did its cover story.

By the way, Peter Chao is the Chinese guy on the left and I'm the one on the right. I thought I should clarify since we apparently all look the same.

For those who don't know, Peter Chao is a Vancouver guy who produces YouTube videos mostly from his basement. He has a fake Chinese accent and his humour targets everyone from Asians, Blacks, Whites, Women to Justin Bieber. Here's a sample of Chao's work that got him temporarily banned from YouTube. Warning: don't watch if you're easily offended!


Once our station landed the exclusive interview with Chao, a lot of people at the office saw this as a major "get". This guy was from Vancouver, had a large Youtube following and was highly controversial. But there was one skeptic among us.

A member of our team said, "Peter Chao is just a guy who makes low budget videos for YouTube. Why are we doing him a favour by putting him on TV?!"

Another colleague of mine then retorted, "Peter Chao's videos have on average 1-million views. That's more than our newscasts and any other in town. We're not doing him any favour. He's doing us a favour!"

I tell this story because it surprises me there are still people in the media who are skeptical of YouTube's reach, and think people like Peter Chao are just internet punks.

A quick search on YouTube will show most of Chao's videos have more than a million views. Chao's "Chinese Guy is a Sexist" video has upwards of 3.6-million views. That would make it the top ranked TV program according to the BBM Canadian Ratings for the week of Nov. 29 - Dec. 5, easily outdistancing The Amazing Race 17.

Peter Chao's videos aren't even the most popular. The infamous "Double Rainbow" video has 18-million views, topping the 13.5-million American viewers who tuned in for the much anticipated series finale of Lost.

Yes, I know "Double Rainbow", and Peter Chao's clips gained millions of viewers over a long period of time. They also have viewers from across the world, some of whom viewed them multiple times. Conventional TV shows, on the other hand, garner their ratings in one night in one defined geographical area.

Still, Peter Chao's videos have attracted millions of eyeballs with a shoestring budget, while some TV shows still fail despite having multi-million dollar budgets. The only thing people like Peter Chao haven't figured out is how to convert their views into big money. Although, selling t-shirts like the one you see on the left is a start. Peace out, Mudaf*&cas!

Behind the Times: Time Magazine names Mark Zuckerberg 2010 Person of the Year

My first thought when I heard Time Magazine named Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg its 2010 Person of the Year was: "Shouldn't they have named him in 2008? What about Julian Assange?"

Time giving Zuckerberg this honour signifies two things. The first is that this traditional media establishment is acknowledging Facebook's cultural impact. I think in a way it's Time saying, "Okay, social media has made us irrelevant. So, we might as well try to look hip and cool by parading social media's poster boy on our cover."

The second thing this signifies is that some traditional media outlets like Time are slow to recognize the cultural impact of social media. C'mon! Facebook entrenched itself in our cultural fabric years ago. If Time wanted to name Mark Zuckerberg its Person of the Year, it should have done so in 2008!

That's when Facebook began gaining many of its 500-million users. That's when most of us began to fear for our Facebook privacy. That's when Collins English Dictionary added "Facebook" to the dictionary both as a noun and a verb. By 2008, Zuckerberg had made much of his $6-billion fortune - half of which he recently pledged to charity.

If you're going to be late to the game, at least be the first publication to put Zuckerberg on the cover. But Time was beaten to the punch by Newsweek, which had the Facebook founder on its cover in 2007. Fortune also featured Zuckerberg on its cover this past autumn.

I seriously think Time only gives a crap about Zuckerberg in 2010 because a major motion picture was made about him. Time is a news magazine, and it's showing it's not being very current right now. After all, we all know something isn't fresh anymore by the time Hollywood catches on to it.

Watch the trailer for The Social Network:

Santa?! Are you really on Twitter?!

It seems nowadays everyone who is anyone has a Twitter account. In the spirit of Christmas, I decided to look up Santa Claus just for fun and see what's out there. After all, Santa Claus must be on Twitter since it's what all the important people in the world are doing these days.

Santa Claus does indeed show up when you search for him on Twitter. There are at least 20 Santas on Twitter. They range from being innocent, cheesy to just plain absurd. Perhaps one of them is the real one! Here's a few Santas on Twitter along with their Twitter pic.

1) @SantaClaus - If Santa really existed and had a Twitter account, it would probably look like this one. He tweets very authentic Santa-like comments: "Sure enjoying all the houses getting lit up for the holidays. Makes it fun flying around to see who is naughty and who is being nice."

@SantaClaus even has a very real looking url - http://www.santacentral.com/. But when you click on it, the site is nothing more than a classifieds site selling everything from townhomes to airline tickets. Then again, the economy's in rough shape -perhaps even Santa has to diversify his income source.

2) @Santa_Claus - Perhaps the real Santa was too late to join twitter and had to settle for the @Santa_Claus handle. Again, this Santa is very active on Twitter and gives what looks like legit Kris Kringle updates: "On this 44th night it is still snowing very hard and the wind is howling, I wonder how much longer this bad weather will last"

But @Santa_Claus dissapoints. Click on his website, http://www.laplandletterbox.com/, and you'll discover it's all a guise for a company that sells fake personalized Santa letters. Who knew such a service existed?

3) @Miss_SantaClaus - I'll be honest, this is just a reason for me to put up a picture of a hot woman in a sexy Santa costume.

If you're wondering, @Miss_SantaClaus is selling...you guessed it...personalized Santa letters! Why a company would think a sexy Miss Santa would appeal to parents is beyond me.

4) @LoadedSanta - Loaded Santa is just plain absurd and crude. His Twitter bio simply states: " I deliver 2 billion presents in one night to a bunch of shithead kids. I'm having a beer."

This account is an example of someone who clearly has a crass sense of humour and way too much free time. How else do you explain a person who tweets things like this on a daily basis: "In the North Pole, the Polar Express is a porno about a guy with a premature ejaculation problem."

There you have it, a sample of the many Santas roaming in the Twitterverse. Are many of these accounts a waste of time? Probably. Did I waste an afternoon sifting through these Santa accounts? You betcha!

Ah...but did I find the real Santa Claus on Twitter? Of course not kids, Santa doesn't exist! Merry Christmas!

Check out more on Video Extras.

Taking the "Crazies" Seriously!

There's a news story making international headlines right now about a supposed time traveler who pops up in film footage of the 1928 premiere of Charlie Chaplin's film, The Circus. An Irish filmmaker is getting major media attention for an odd discovery he has made.

In a YouTube video that has drawn 2.8-million views and counting, George Clarke, points out a woman who walks by the camera and appears to be talking on a cell phone. While the scene of someone walking by with her palm to her face and talking is not uncommon in 2010, it's rather unusual in 1928.

Clarke draws the most obvious of conclusions: the mystery woman is a time traveler talking on a cell phone that requires no cell tower signal.

"What?! That's an outrageous claim!" is the reaction people generally have when seeing the story. But thanks to YouTube, so-called "crazies" making these claims are gaining credibility and getting into the news.

To be fair, Clarke doesn't seem all that crazy. Okay...his time travelling theory is a bit loony. Still, he seems like a normal guy otherwise, and is a legit independent filmmaker. But prior to YouTube, I don't think he would ever have gotten the attention of traditional media outlets because he would have been labeled as a nut.

In the olden days, he would have to call or write people like me and pitch his idea. That exchange would have went something like this:

Clarke: "Hi, I have a news story idea. I found a woman in a Charlie Chaplin film who looks like she's talking on a cell phone. I think she's a time traveler. Can you put this in the news?"

News Editor: "Uh...okaaay...thanks for getting in touch with me, but um...yeah...we don't do those kinds of stories. No offense, I actually think you're kind of crazy. Bye."

Nowadays, Clarke just has to make a video, upload it to YouTube and hope a million people will watch it. Once that happens, it's not him who's calling the media - it's the media calling him. The world is then treated to an intriguing story with ample water cooler buzz. Isn't it funny how a million YouTube views can give you instant credibility?

For the record, I don't think the woman in the clip is a time traveller. She's likely a woman shielding her face while talking to herself because she's...well...probably a little crazy.

Can't get an interview with Kanye West? Don't worry - that's what Twitter is for!

I remember watching the film 'Almost Famous' and thinking to myself, "wouldn't it be cool to be a music journalist?" Who wouldn't want to get exclusive interviews with music's demigods, and maybe even follow them on the road to see what rock stars are like in private?

The exclusivity of that kind of access to rock stars is the reason I think music journalism has been traditionally glamorized by the public. But I think this kind of journalism is at risk of being cheapened by the advent of social media.

The reality is that social media allows entertainers, athletes and even politicians to bypass reporters and talk directly to the public. I hate to say this because it could diminish the middle man role traditional media plays.

If you just want information without insight or depth, then who needs a reporter when a celebrity such as Kanye West can speak directly to his fans through his Twitter account? And speaking of Kanye, I want to show why I think he's a good case study of how social media, Twitter in particular, has changed the way the media covers celebrities.

Kanye is a guy who has been much maligned in the media for being an egomaniac and overall asshole - especially after he interrupted Taylor Swift at the 2009 MTV Video Music Awards. Why wouldn't he feel the need to bypass the horde of reporters to get to his fan base? Guess what, after Kanye's self imposed exile, he made a comeback of sorts by suddenly appearing on Twitter.

And what did the media do? In our celebrity obsessed culture, the media covered his foray into Twitter like real news. This past July, a google search for Kanye West would have turned up headlines like this one from Rolling Stone Magazine, "Kanye West Joins Twitter, Debuts New Song".

Even as I write this, there's a story about Kanye West that's based entirely on what he wrote on Twitter. He's currently pissed off because one of his new songs was leaked on the internet. Did he issue a press statement saying this? Nope...he just tweeted and reached his 1-million plus followers instantly. Those tweets were then re-purposed by traditional media into a news story.

Journalists pride themselves on their sources and the answers they can get from them. I feel that kind of gets cheapened with celebrity Twitter accounts. How enterprising is a piece of work if it's quoting bite sized 140-character tweets that more than a million people have seen already? I want a reporter to get me what I can't get myself. I don't really need a reporter who's only going to quote a celebrity's tweets - I can do that myself by signing up for a Twitter account.

Check out more on this post here: Video Extras

Facebook: Where Reporters Seek the Dearly Departed

It was early September and I was sitting in a BCIT classroom as my first MDIA 1045 class (Intro to Social Media) was getting started. My instructor, Kemp Edmonds, asked which one of us students used social media at work. At most, a couple of people raised their hands, with the rest of us keeping our hands planted on our desks.

To be honest, I should have raised my hand that night because I do use social media at work, but I was embarrassed to admit it. So here I am...coming clean.

While I don’t frequently use social media at work to network or keep in touch with professional contacts (not yet, at least), I do use Facebook quite often to do something that is probably unique to my industry...look for dead people.

Here's how:

1) I search for R.I.P and “In memory of” tribute pages of people who have died and made it to the news. It doesn’t matter if it’s a gangster who got shot or a teen involved in a tragic incident, if the victim is under 30-years old there’s a good chance he or she will have a tribute page made for them. Take for example the story of Tyler Clementi's suicide. Clementi is a Rutgers University freshman who authorities say committed suicide after his dorm roomate exposed his homosexuality by tweeting about it. It's also alleged the roomated had invited people to watch a secret webcam feed of a sexual encounter Clementi had with a male student.
Though my station didn't cover this story, my reporter instincts led me to search whether a Facebook tribute page was made for Clementi. Not surprisingly, one was made, and it contains condolences from friends and members of the Gay and Lesbian community. As well, there were several photos of a young man who probably never asked to be in the headlines.

2) As I alluded in the previous point, Facebook is a treasure trove for photos. It doesn’t matter if the person is dead or alive; you’re likely going to have at least one photo of yourself if you are on Facebook. In the olden days of about 5-years ago, if I needed a photo of someone who had just passed away, I needed to land an interview with a grieving loved one and then ask for a photo. If I needed a photo of a gangster…well forget about it!

3) If I wanted to find out more about a person who has passed away and report on how his loved ones want him remembered, I have a variety of heartfelt comments I can quote from a tribute page’s wall. Nothing of course is more genuine, touching and powerful than hearing and seeing someone on radio or TV. But sometimes people shy away from the media in times of tragedy, which is perfectly understandable. With the pervasiveness of Facebook, journalists now have another source if they cannot land that in-person interview.

4) I not only use Facebook to supplement my work, I also cover stories about how people use it. In the past month alone there have been two high profile stories in BC involving Facebook. The first is the story of a Pitt Meadows rave party where it's alleged pictures of a gang rape involving a teenage girl were spread on Facebook. The second is the sabotaging of Laura Szendrei's Facebook tribute page. The 15-year old Szendrei was beaten to death in broad daylight in Delta, BC.

Both are terrible stories, but let’s face it, they're examples of how social media has become the communication tool of choice for teenageers. The gossipy whispers that used to echo through school hallways have been replaced by Facebook posts and tweets.

So, has this been good for reporting or not? It depends how you look at it...here's a couple of pros and cons that come to mind.

Pro: There’s no faster and easier way to get a photo of an ordinary Joe who suddenly finds himself in the headlines. Where else am I going to find a picture of a gang banger in the comfort of my home or office?

Con: Reporters can potentially get carried away with quoting what's on someone's tribute page and forget to do any actual interiviews.

Pro: I can now send people a message on Facebook or even Twitter asking for an interview. No longer do I have to awkwardly stumble through a cold call saying to a grieving mother, “I know it’s a bad time, but I’d like to give you a chance to tell your son’s story and how you want him remembered.” Trust me, making that call is not easy no matter how many times you’ve done it.

Con: I can now send people a message on Facebook or even Twitter asking for an interview. Let me explain this. In the absence of someone’s phone number, I think it’s perfectly okay to contact someone through Facebook. But if you have the potential interviewee’s number, it’s always better to call in person. I once saw a reporter write on the wall of a Facebook tribute page, “I am sorry for your loss. Please call me if you knew the victim as I’d like to interview you for a news story.” That post was probably written with good intentions but it came across as detached, cold and callous.

At the end of the day, Facebook has been a great tool for journalism. Social media has given the media another avenue to search for information and sources. In my opinion it will continue to become an integral tool in my line of work...especially if people continue to honour the dead on Facebook.