by rick grant rickgrant01@comcast.net
Recently, Time's "Person of The Year" cover issue hit the stands featuring a computer monitor with a mirror, proclaiming that you, me, and everyone were the persons of the year. It was a brilliant commentary of today's rise of the individual as the free voice of journalism via the Internet. Now, due to the massive proliferation of the World Wide Web, everyone is a writer or a videographer. Just log-onto YouTube.com and anyone with a video camera can report on the news or any absurd crap that they think is funny. One could call it Stupid Candid Camera.
During the exhaustive and prolonged coverage of the Virginia Tech shootings, a student with his cell phone video camera captured grainy images of the cops on the scene where Cho was massacring people. Horrified viewers could hear the sound of Cho's Glock and Walther .22 Automatic firing round after round into students and teachers. The video was instantly transmitted all over the globe via the World Wide Web and CNN International
Yes, it's a bold new world of "you" journalism, reported by and for the people. Michael Richard's racial rant was captured by an audience member with a cell phone video camera. Then, a telephone answering recording of Alec Baldwin's nasty scolding of his 12 year old daughter was leaked to CNN, with predictable results-Baldwin was embarrassed and issued an apology. Ah yes, it was too late. Baldwin's carefully crafted comedic image on 30 Rock was damaged.
The truth is: Every man, woman, and child is packing potential news images in their phones, and small HD video cameras in their carry around bags. When the police beat a suspect senseless, someone gets it on video. Bang zoom, it's all over CNN and the officers are in trouble.
With all this amateur news videos floating around in cyperspace and unsubstantiated opinion clogging up the blogosphere, the journalistic cream quickly rose to the top. Suddenly, professional journalists were submitting their commentary to intelligent websites that specialize in factual opinion and responsible unbias reporting. Of course, there are still opinionated commentators who write clever and humorous material with loyal followings offered up on the Internet.
The most prestigious news websites on the Internet include CNN.com, HuffingtonPost.com, MSNBC.com, NYTimes.com, USAToday.com, YahooNews.com, DrudgeReport.com, and of course, one of my favorites, TheOnion.com where one can get a healthy laugh from the Onion's outrageous satire of the news.
As the Internet gradually merges with television, people are fed up with 24 hour television news like CNN television whose anchors run a big story into the ground. By the second day of the VT shootings, anchors were interviewing friends of friends of the victims and young people who knew the killer. With such grating on-air overkill, more people are getting their news from the Internet sites that allow for greater and more precise coverage and less repetition. Office workers can quickly go to CNN.com or MSMBC.com and get an overall perspective of a major news event then get back to work before the boss gets suspicious.
I, like many other journalists, work from a home office with CNN on my office TV, muted. But I go to Internet news sites for breaking news. It's easily digested and less distracting. I love the Onion which is my source for a few laughs. Who could resist a columns titled "When I Die, I'll Haunt the F... Out of You" or "Just This Once, Why Don't We Stay Up All Night and Do A Bunch of Coke," or a panel discussion on the merits of building a huge moat between the U.S. and Mexican border, which begs the question: Isn't the Rio Grande river like a moat?
Whether its professional journalists reporting the news, writing commentary, or some kid with a cell phone video camera, we are inundated with news from an infinite number of sources. For news junkies like me, there are never enough details about big stories like the VT massacre. Yet, I have to get on with my own workload which keeps me tied to the keyboard, and periodically checking the Internet. Sad but true, we are more fascinated by spree killers like Cho than heart warming stories of a dog saving a drowning man. It's human nature. Thus, the old TV news adage still holds true: If it bleeds it leads.
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