“Stay tuned for your local news, then top clips from YouTube”
It’s been interesting to watch the dust-storm around a recent CBC TV News item caused. Twenty-five year old biochemistry student (and, er, former CTV freelancer) Stephen Taylor found what he believed was a clip of Stephen Harper taken out of context.
You can watch the video he produced to see if you agree. I’m inclined to agree with him (though the Toronto Star’s Antonia Zerbisias points out these errors are more likely made in the editing suite by accident rather than, as Taylor seems to believe, as a conscious decision on the part of the journalist.)
What I find more interesting is just how powerful YouTube.com is proving to be. Taylor’s video has been played more than 5,000 times, enough to place it among the “most-linked-to” list on YouTube. Preaching to the choir? Perhaps. But it’s certainly an effective means of getting the message out.
Taylor’s video caught the eye of conservative talk show host Charles “Get A Life!” Adler who brought him on to talk about the report. Not a huge surprise, perhaps, given Adler’s cozy relationship with CBC competitor Global Television. (What did surprise me was Adler’s bizarre statement that he thinks the CBC is “a propaganda agent for Hezbollah”. Direct quote. He actually said that. I swear to Allah — peace be upon him. 
)
Still Taylor had a point and he’s just one of an increasing number of people using sites like YouTube and Google Video to remix news stories (Taylor added visual commentary) and seeding the story to the Internet. Even big p.r. companies seem to be getting into the act — ABC News says the Republicans paid to create a phony “amateur” video meant to discredit Al Gore.
Progress? Let’s hope not.
What do you think? Are the presence of web sites like YouTube providing society with a better overall understanding of the world around us?
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nicely written todd. you even managed to get the accurate. lol… i thought you were baptist.. did you convert??
Close. Lapsed Anglican.
Adler is a total blowhard. Why is that so many Conservative pundits and talk show hosts must be so puffed-up and aggressive?
I think you want SWT, not PBUH.
I’m inclined to agree with the YouTube clip. Context is an amazing thing. I hate defending Harper – I didn’t vote for him – but hey, he was smeared in this case.
I’d like to see penalties on editors and individual reporters for context manipulation like this. Whether the intent was there or not, any reasonable person should be able to see that the result of the CBC’s editing was misleading. It is the reporters’ responsibility to ensure that their aired work accurately represents reality.
“Editing room errors” should not be allowed to mislead us.
Fascinating, Tod. Was Harper deliberatedly edited to look like a cold-hearted jerk? I wonder.
As for YouTube, it’s a fascinating way for people to gain access to information that would have been very hard to get in the past.
Thanks for sharing this.