There Is A Reason Cameras Are Everywhere

Michael Hedges June 1, 2020 - Follow on Twitter

Citizen journalism became a hot topic a dozen years ago as advancing technologies intersected with a growing sense of the limitations on traditional reporting. Mobile phones suddenly provided instant - albeit shaky - video from anywhere easily transmitted through social media platforms. Broadcasters and publishers were begging folks to share, hoping to project ubiquity.

The original concept faded as they tend to do. Much early output never got beyond the cute animal photo genre, which of course became a business. Some of it devolved into whacked out rantings that had no market, until they did. Most broadcasters and publishers gave up trying to corral the citizen journalists.

Last week a mobile phone video showed something nobody wanted to see. And everybody wanted to see it. A bystander recorded a man’s last breath. He had been detained on suspicion of a minor charge, handcuffed and restrained by a police officer placing a knee with full weight across the back of his neck. Voices were recorded of other bystanders begging the police officer to release the man. Those pleas were ignored, with derision from other police officers attending. The place was Minneapolis, Minnesota in the United States. The mans’ name was George Floyd. His last words, in detail, were memorialized by Slate legal writer Dahlia Lithwick (May 30).

US cities extending far from Minneapolis descended into raging civil disturbance through the week, reminiscent of the late 1960’s urban riots. The four Minneapolis police officers were almost immediately terminated; the now-former officer who pinned George Floyd to the ground later charged with third degree murder. Protestors swarmed through cities chanting “I can’t breath.” Law enforcement authorities responded with force, including mechanized armored vehicles often referred to as tanks.

In the US, the story eclipsed all others. Publishers and broadcasters across the country dropped everything else. Coronavirus, the G7, a US space shuttle launch and all the rest quickly disappeared from the news. Into the minute-be-minute breaking news were videos shared through social media and grabbed by other news media. Some showed burning automobiles, broken glass and evidence of looting. Some showed further police transgressions, including a Seattle officer applying a knee in like manner to a protestor. Some showed peaceful protestors singing songs and carrying signs.

“The only thing that changed is all of a sudden we have cameras everywhere,” observed St. Paul, Minnesota mayor Melvin Carter to CNN (May 31). Minneapolis and St. Paul are proximate, often called the Twin Cities. CNN reporter Omar Jimenez and two camera crew members were arrested in Minneapolis while on the air live. They were released without charge shortly thereafter. CNN Worldwide president Jeff Zucker reached out to Minnesota governor Tim Walz, who “apologized for the infringement and took responsibility,” said CNN (May 29).

There were other incidents of reporters and, particularly, photojournalists harassed, detained, shot at or otherwise injured. Two photojournalists, one on assignment for AFP, were arrested in Las Vegas for “failure to disperse,” reported the Nevada Independent (May 30). In various cities, several media workers sustained injuries from rubber bullets and teargas canisters. Some were attacked by protestors. CNN Center in Atlanta, headquarters for the news network, was violated by persons with hammers and spray paint.

All this took place after US president Donald Trump made a sly attempt to intimidate social media generally and Twitter specifically. A pair of Trump-Tweets incorrectly condemning mail-in ballots were flagged with a fact-checking link by Twitter after which president Trump issued an executive order, of dubious legal strength, to reign in social media. Days later - as the Minnesota protests spread - another Trump-Tweet evoked a racist Miami-Dade sheriff who said in the Sixties “when the looting starts, the shooting starts.” Twitter flagged that, too; this time for violating platform rules against glorifying violence.

It’s another political year in the United States. Media coverage is ramping up for the political party conventions to take place in late summer, coronavirus notwithstanding. Palpable tension is reminiscent of another late Sixties event - the 1968 Democratic National Convention in Chicago, which followed the assassinations of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr and Senator Robert F. Kennedy. Police on horseback beat demonstrators ferociously, broadcast live on television to chants of “The Whole World Is Watching.”

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