journalism or what?
Jul. 25th, 2023 02:33 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
onymousthe internet has its own organic way of doing things. sometimes the approach seems - or, is - lighthearted, or even sarcastic & cynical, at first. but great and highly effective things can grow out of such beginnings.
back in the day, for instance, anonymous - which sprang up from the least likely online outpost ever - could be counted on to get all kinds of true info about shady goings on in the public sphere & behind the scenes of it - and to do something about it. they were a reassuring presence you couldn't help but root for. though eventually crushed by the feds, that spirit did indeed fan out to the wider internet. decent people hate injustice, and taxpaying citizens prefer to see the governments they fund handle things properly for them. but if the governments don't or won't (or are the thing that needs to be handled), or if it's more of a moral than a legal situation, instead of feeling completely powerless, people in this era realize they have a voice online. and sometimes that collective voice actually does translate into enough power to effect a situation.
there's quite a lot of nosey (some might say, stalkerish), gossipy, and surprisingly resourceful people online, who seem to be able to find out far more than expected about any person or situation. rapidly. within minutes of it hitting the news. and that's accounting for reporters and police being online these days, as well as spies (think bellingcat) masquerading as regular people. the actual regular people online are themselves quite resourceful.
most often though, over the years, we've seen people who post a lot online think of themselves more as citizen journalists or independent journalists (with the vast majority of these opting to try political punditry instead of 'actual' journalism) than as private investigators. more in the mold of the endless array of tv talking heads on 24-hour cable news networks, than david addison or maddie hayes. i'm not sure why this is, beyond the bad (& sad) influence of bad tv on our culture generally.
and of course there's the people on youtube (and now elsewhere), trying desparately to monetize, who would rather not be associated with journalism or the press in any way, either because they don't want the implied responsibility; or because they genuinely just want to talk freely to other people online, and they prefer making videos to writing.
which brings us to so called 'true crime'. apparently, there are a lot of people intensely interested in crimes - old, new, or currently in progress. (i have thoughts and questions about the appeal of this as a hobby or favourite topic, but that's for another post.) the resourceful types out there can research an accused individual's entire social circle and the history of wherever they live (everywhere they've ever lived) within a day or two, it seems. and they are nothing if not determined. they'll stay on a case for years, if 'necessary', constantly unearthing more details and connecting more dots and spinning more theories.
and again, it's the internet, so this also brings us to 'drama'. an online specific media genre, encompassing both celebrity gossip and the scripted reality-tv-esque conflicts planned by y list 'celebrities' (y is for youtube) to drive more traffic to their monetized channels. it also includes any naturally occurring conflicts happening anywhere online. 'spilling the tea' and 'bringing the receipts' have been common refrains in this sector, but those terms and attitudes also fanned out to the wider internet years ago.
online, there's a wider lattitude for errors honestly made by regular people presenting the news, than there is for info coming from mainstream media; and more credit given for effort by nonprofessionals trying to fill in the many, many gaps left by the so called media professionals these days. the world loves a trier, after all. many support all creative effort. some support any flash of entrepreneurial spirit or 'hustle'. some still have a keen admiration for good journalism when they stumble across it. most on the internet, love the internet.
in my opinion - in this era, if not throughout history - there are also greater social consequences for huge, serious errors or lies from online content creators than legacy media ever faces for the same.
in a lot of ways though, the expectations and hopes of viewers and particularly the desires of the people actually making such videos are surprisingly parallel to those of msm. the video creators want to be the trusted source, they want to be considered the best or one of the best, and they really want to be first - even interrupting their offline lives to bring 'breaking news' on their chosen topic to their followers. (they also keenly want to make accurate predictions about how things will turn out or what the next developments will be.) i'm not sure how much of this self-imposed time pressure is motivated by genuine desire to actually do their best and create quality (specifially, news) content, including getting scoops, and how much is just to have people to talk to immediately about the latest developments, but it is clearly genuine.
as time has gone by, the more exposure i've had to this true crime genre online (specifically, on youtube, in my case), the more it seems to me that rather a lot of people have stumbled into doing some sort of combo of private investigation and journalism without intending to, and without even realizing that's what they're doing now. (i would not, however, call it investigative journalism. and that would also be for another post.) the unintentional nature of their activity means they often, literally, don't know what they're doing. or why. they're without true purpose, and they're often not grounded by the appropriate principles for the situations in which they find themselves.
recently, this could be observed on some of the yt accounts devoted to discussing the idaho murders or 'idaho4' case. the case began back in november of 2022 and a lot has happened and not happened since then. there's been much discussion - sadly, by a minority of the online public instead of the majority - about 6th amendment rights, i.e., the right to a fair trial, and the presumption of innocence until convicted of a crime. also about msm - and how both its failures and malign conduct effect individual cases, the justice system overall, and the 1st amendment rights of people who post online, on 'social media', including the true crime content creators on yt. most people by now realise the msm sees social media not only as a source of leads on stories and of quotes, comments, and media, but also as competition for clicks and views and trust. and that they're not very happy about how well the competition is doing. there's also been a lot of discussion about transparency and the lack thereof from law enforcement agencies and prosecutors during 'an ongoing investigation' and cases that haven't yet made it to trial. also, about law enforcement ineptitude, dishonesty, and criminality as well as their presumed, societally assigned virtues.
a couple of weeks or so ago, despite gag orders, what most onlookers consider to be excessive sealing of court documents, and excessive secrecy in general (always attributed to a need to 'protect the integrity of the investigation' - the most overused, obfuscatory phrase to come from any usa officials since 'national security'), some leaked cctv footage to do with this idaho case made its way onto the internet. reaction was largely predictable. the internet did what the internet does:
some of the reaction was astounding though. at least, to me. there's a subset of these true crime video makers who (for the most part, didn't seem to think the cctv footage contained anything of value, yet) became obsessed with finding out who leaked the footage, how they got it, where or who they got it from, where they are from, what their screen names are, what their real names are, why they're leaking it now. they seemed convinced it was for nefarious reasons, that it had been subsequently remixed or altered by people online (not simply enhanced for better visuals and audio), and then that it had been 'stolen'. & they started speaking (then yelling, badgering, bullying) publicly about needing to find out the identities of this person or persons, & the whole story behind it, at first because it was supposedly 'creating drama' in the 'true crime community', and then because it was 'stolen' and whoever leaked it ought to be charged with crimes.
it's as though they are suddenly new to the internet.
it's as though they spend so much time in their true crime bubble that they don't follow any other news, and know nothing about journalism, nor the state of it currently in the usa and around the world, and how hard - or why - real journalists fight to protect sources. in a sense, it's like they're suddenly new to both america and earth.
again, i have thoughts, theories and questions about why these people have reacted this way, and whether it is genuine or disengenuous. and that would be several other posts. however, i find myself wishing they'd take all this time (or any of their time, really) that they're spending trying to expose the leaker, or to bully them into exposing themselves, instead of even trying to figure out the idaho case anymore, and spend it digging into the ethics of journalism instead. learning. internalising. realising why they need to apply these ethics to themselves or else just get off youtube, cos they're posing the real threat to freedom of the press at this point. no false accusations from msm needed this time.
it's extremely frustrating to watch these random, independent individuals (if that's what they really are) emulate the absolute worst of government and the mainstream media while pretending to be superior. not much i can do about that, but i still wanted to explore these issues. to refresh myself (with words) on why this is so wrong and why i felt so angry and disgusted witnessing it. i'm going to be posting info here for a bit about journalism ethics and protection of sources and - as a bonus - private investigator ethics as well. who knows? maybe someone thinking of starting a yt channel, or who already has one, will wander by and be helped by it. or maybe it'll just serve as a reminder, to myself and any others, on how to make better choices about whom to watch and whom to ignore online.
background links:
all of these videos are too long except the last one. up to you if you watch them on double time, partially, or not at all.
the first can be contrasted with the next three to an extent, in terms of steps that could or should be taken before using leaked material as a source document.
sleuthie goosie - seemingly of her own free will, publicly exposing all her communications with a source who offered her the footage, though she declined it. seems she felt doing this was some sort of cya move; unclear why.
https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=lv2yfx6fOag
trucrime dago - an infuriating 'panel' discussion (mostly dominated by julez of all trades), replete with screaming, yelling, bullying, denial and narcissistic projection. curtailing 'drama' is supposedly the motivation.
https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=UzVFot_YKGI
melissa jade - another yt person obsessed with tracking down the leaker, yet suspicious of several other similarly inclined content creators. not simply because of their own behaviour, but because they have a different opinion about the case than she does.
https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=DxnF_zpoIQI
melissa jade - same person. you can see how much closer they've gotten (in a day or so) to exposing the leaker completely and that the motivation has changed to stopping alleged crimes. julez of all trades reappears in comments posted to screen.
https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=pgCYSHHyLAc
unresolved crimes - an alternative perspective
https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=Mn1qwZfhleQ
back in the day, for instance, anonymous - which sprang up from the least likely online outpost ever - could be counted on to get all kinds of true info about shady goings on in the public sphere & behind the scenes of it - and to do something about it. they were a reassuring presence you couldn't help but root for. though eventually crushed by the feds, that spirit did indeed fan out to the wider internet. decent people hate injustice, and taxpaying citizens prefer to see the governments they fund handle things properly for them. but if the governments don't or won't (or are the thing that needs to be handled), or if it's more of a moral than a legal situation, instead of feeling completely powerless, people in this era realize they have a voice online. and sometimes that collective voice actually does translate into enough power to effect a situation.
there's quite a lot of nosey (some might say, stalkerish), gossipy, and surprisingly resourceful people online, who seem to be able to find out far more than expected about any person or situation. rapidly. within minutes of it hitting the news. and that's accounting for reporters and police being online these days, as well as spies (think bellingcat) masquerading as regular people. the actual regular people online are themselves quite resourceful.
most often though, over the years, we've seen people who post a lot online think of themselves more as citizen journalists or independent journalists (with the vast majority of these opting to try political punditry instead of 'actual' journalism) than as private investigators. more in the mold of the endless array of tv talking heads on 24-hour cable news networks, than david addison or maddie hayes. i'm not sure why this is, beyond the bad (& sad) influence of bad tv on our culture generally.
and of course there's the people on youtube (and now elsewhere), trying desparately to monetize, who would rather not be associated with journalism or the press in any way, either because they don't want the implied responsibility; or because they genuinely just want to talk freely to other people online, and they prefer making videos to writing.
which brings us to so called 'true crime'. apparently, there are a lot of people intensely interested in crimes - old, new, or currently in progress. (i have thoughts and questions about the appeal of this as a hobby or favourite topic, but that's for another post.) the resourceful types out there can research an accused individual's entire social circle and the history of wherever they live (everywhere they've ever lived) within a day or two, it seems. and they are nothing if not determined. they'll stay on a case for years, if 'necessary', constantly unearthing more details and connecting more dots and spinning more theories.
and again, it's the internet, so this also brings us to 'drama'. an online specific media genre, encompassing both celebrity gossip and the scripted reality-tv-esque conflicts planned by y list 'celebrities' (y is for youtube) to drive more traffic to their monetized channels. it also includes any naturally occurring conflicts happening anywhere online. 'spilling the tea' and 'bringing the receipts' have been common refrains in this sector, but those terms and attitudes also fanned out to the wider internet years ago.
online, there's a wider lattitude for errors honestly made by regular people presenting the news, than there is for info coming from mainstream media; and more credit given for effort by nonprofessionals trying to fill in the many, many gaps left by the so called media professionals these days. the world loves a trier, after all. many support all creative effort. some support any flash of entrepreneurial spirit or 'hustle'. some still have a keen admiration for good journalism when they stumble across it. most on the internet, love the internet.
in my opinion - in this era, if not throughout history - there are also greater social consequences for huge, serious errors or lies from online content creators than legacy media ever faces for the same.
in a lot of ways though, the expectations and hopes of viewers and particularly the desires of the people actually making such videos are surprisingly parallel to those of msm. the video creators want to be the trusted source, they want to be considered the best or one of the best, and they really want to be first - even interrupting their offline lives to bring 'breaking news' on their chosen topic to their followers. (they also keenly want to make accurate predictions about how things will turn out or what the next developments will be.) i'm not sure how much of this self-imposed time pressure is motivated by genuine desire to actually do their best and create quality (specifially, news) content, including getting scoops, and how much is just to have people to talk to immediately about the latest developments, but it is clearly genuine.
as time has gone by, the more exposure i've had to this true crime genre online (specifically, on youtube, in my case), the more it seems to me that rather a lot of people have stumbled into doing some sort of combo of private investigation and journalism without intending to, and without even realizing that's what they're doing now. (i would not, however, call it investigative journalism. and that would also be for another post.) the unintentional nature of their activity means they often, literally, don't know what they're doing. or why. they're without true purpose, and they're often not grounded by the appropriate principles for the situations in which they find themselves.
recently, this could be observed on some of the yt accounts devoted to discussing the idaho murders or 'idaho4' case. the case began back in november of 2022 and a lot has happened and not happened since then. there's been much discussion - sadly, by a minority of the online public instead of the majority - about 6th amendment rights, i.e., the right to a fair trial, and the presumption of innocence until convicted of a crime. also about msm - and how both its failures and malign conduct effect individual cases, the justice system overall, and the 1st amendment rights of people who post online, on 'social media', including the true crime content creators on yt. most people by now realise the msm sees social media not only as a source of leads on stories and of quotes, comments, and media, but also as competition for clicks and views and trust. and that they're not very happy about how well the competition is doing. there's also been a lot of discussion about transparency and the lack thereof from law enforcement agencies and prosecutors during 'an ongoing investigation' and cases that haven't yet made it to trial. also, about law enforcement ineptitude, dishonesty, and criminality as well as their presumed, societally assigned virtues.
a couple of weeks or so ago, despite gag orders, what most onlookers consider to be excessive sealing of court documents, and excessive secrecy in general (always attributed to a need to 'protect the integrity of the investigation' - the most overused, obfuscatory phrase to come from any usa officials since 'national security'), some leaked cctv footage to do with this idaho case made its way onto the internet. reaction was largely predictable. the internet did what the internet does:
- some people reuploaded, presumably to create backups.
- some tech inclined people questioned the quality of these backups.
- most following the case wanted to see it for themselves, after hearing and wondering about it for months, so they spent hours watching cctv footage scouring for clues - or even any sounds or sights at all.
- once they watched, there was a bit of confusion and debate over what specifically had been seen or heard.
- so, then there were people trying to enhance the audio or zoom in/enhance/clip the more active segments.
- there were hopes for more videos from different time segments or dates, some of which were fulfilled, while some weren't.
- there were new theories spawned about the case and the culprits.
- there were those who saw it as showing nothing more than what we'd already been told it showed.
- there was some debate about whether any of it showed anything relevant or it was worthless on the whole.
- there was surprise, and wonder at who managed to get the footage and how, and why they were releasing it, and why just then.
- and there was, of course, a torrent of secondary videos by people on yt who cover the case, either watching and discussing the footage in real time with viewers, or simply discussing it and all these surrounding issues straight to camera.
some of the reaction was astounding though. at least, to me. there's a subset of these true crime video makers who (for the most part, didn't seem to think the cctv footage contained anything of value, yet) became obsessed with finding out who leaked the footage, how they got it, where or who they got it from, where they are from, what their screen names are, what their real names are, why they're leaking it now. they seemed convinced it was for nefarious reasons, that it had been subsequently remixed or altered by people online (not simply enhanced for better visuals and audio), and then that it had been 'stolen'. & they started speaking (then yelling, badgering, bullying) publicly about needing to find out the identities of this person or persons, & the whole story behind it, at first because it was supposedly 'creating drama' in the 'true crime community', and then because it was 'stolen' and whoever leaked it ought to be charged with crimes.
it's as though they are suddenly new to the internet.
it's as though they spend so much time in their true crime bubble that they don't follow any other news, and know nothing about journalism, nor the state of it currently in the usa and around the world, and how hard - or why - real journalists fight to protect sources. in a sense, it's like they're suddenly new to both america and earth.
again, i have thoughts, theories and questions about why these people have reacted this way, and whether it is genuine or disengenuous. and that would be several other posts. however, i find myself wishing they'd take all this time (or any of their time, really) that they're spending trying to expose the leaker, or to bully them into exposing themselves, instead of even trying to figure out the idaho case anymore, and spend it digging into the ethics of journalism instead. learning. internalising. realising why they need to apply these ethics to themselves or else just get off youtube, cos they're posing the real threat to freedom of the press at this point. no false accusations from msm needed this time.
it's extremely frustrating to watch these random, independent individuals (if that's what they really are) emulate the absolute worst of government and the mainstream media while pretending to be superior. not much i can do about that, but i still wanted to explore these issues. to refresh myself (with words) on why this is so wrong and why i felt so angry and disgusted witnessing it. i'm going to be posting info here for a bit about journalism ethics and protection of sources and - as a bonus - private investigator ethics as well. who knows? maybe someone thinking of starting a yt channel, or who already has one, will wander by and be helped by it. or maybe it'll just serve as a reminder, to myself and any others, on how to make better choices about whom to watch and whom to ignore online.
background links:
all of these videos are too long except the last one. up to you if you watch them on double time, partially, or not at all.
the first can be contrasted with the next three to an extent, in terms of steps that could or should be taken before using leaked material as a source document.
sleuthie goosie - seemingly of her own free will, publicly exposing all her communications with a source who offered her the footage, though she declined it. seems she felt doing this was some sort of cya move; unclear why.
https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=lv2yfx6fOag
trucrime dago - an infuriating 'panel' discussion (mostly dominated by julez of all trades), replete with screaming, yelling, bullying, denial and narcissistic projection. curtailing 'drama' is supposedly the motivation.
https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=UzVFot_YKGI
melissa jade - another yt person obsessed with tracking down the leaker, yet suspicious of several other similarly inclined content creators. not simply because of their own behaviour, but because they have a different opinion about the case than she does.
https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=DxnF_zpoIQI
melissa jade - same person. you can see how much closer they've gotten (in a day or so) to exposing the leaker completely and that the motivation has changed to stopping alleged crimes. julez of all trades reappears in comments posted to screen.
https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=pgCYSHHyLAc
unresolved crimes - an alternative perspective
https://piped.kavin.rocks/watch?v=Mn1qwZfhleQ
