Can’t stop the stream
Things have changed. That’s not news. However, the way that news is broadcast has.
This morning, in New York, the mayor sent in his armed city employees (the police) to remove the campsite in a city park. You may have heard about it: Camp Occupy. I don’t think that anyone was surprised. However.
The mayor decided to keep the news from the rest of us. Put police helicopters into the airspace over the park so that more midstream media couldn’t watch the techniques of camp clearance. Called a press conference, but not a public one. Only by invitation. Closed the park space to all others. And imagined, in the tunnel visioned manner of politicians, that everything was controlled and under control.
Not so much. From the relative safety of my office, some seven hundred kilometers away, I was able to watch a live data stream of the news via Ustream.tv and a group of citizens equipped with smartphones. Not exactly the way that newsgathering is taught in colleges. Effective, and outside the envelope.
Within days, that link will probably decay, and this post will have minor historical interest. Don’t let that worry you. The world will continue to get news in ways that were only dreamed about when I was involved with student media. No more waiting until the end of the week for the broadsheets to return from the print shop. From now on, the only way a politician will be able to fully control the message is… sorry, there no longer will be a way. And methinks we’re all going to be better off.
