Prime time snuff
How does everyone feel about (what amounts to) a snuff film from Vancouver airport being the most watched clip on YouTube this morning? 250,000 views and counting.
Does the nature of a video like this change when it hits the front page of YouTube? A few days ago it was just evidence in a police inquiry.
UPDATE: Mathew Ingram posted about citizen journalism and this video yesterday. Close to a hundred people left comments and almost all were appalled at how police dealt with the situation – doing little to calm Robert Dziekanski before tasering him, twice.
This outrage is exactly how I felt after watching the clip. No clip on YouTube would mean no public reaction and therefore likely no public pressure for the police to be held accountable. There is no question that having this video in the public domain is a good thing.
The point I’m making above is that it is a snuff film. Robert Dziekanski dies on camera at the end of the clip and 250,000 of us watched it. That gives me a very funny feeling.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qHKk5qQRzL4]
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About Pema Hegan
A Kiwi living in Canada.
I love music, obsess over architecture and miss the ocean.
I'm a partner and managing director at Rethink Toronto.
Before Rethink, I founded and then sold GigPark (a social web startup), and was the founding editor-in-chief of Dose.
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Well I know you’ve worked (work?) in the media industry and I still do. it’s amazing/disturbing what you can see that the public never has access to. tsunami victims? suicide bombers? war zones? accident scenes? yeah I know what the uncensored imagery looks like. you’d think you’d get desensitized to it but all it’s really done for me is amp up my gallows humour – call it a coping mechanism.
I have a personal philosophy that prevents me from viewing videos of human pathos outside of my work environment. I believe that I shouldn’t have someone’s demise be the first and last impression that I have of that person. it cheapens their life and everything they might’ve stood for.
at the same time, seeing a video like this allows the public an unvarnished look at the truth of a situation. otherwise the RCMP would adopt the CYA principle without there being a counterpoint.
That sounds like a very sensible (and admirable) personal philosophy, RBeezy.
I’m not sure if people watching the clip thought about it long enough to realize what they were doing. And because of this, I’m not sure they asked themselves the same moral questions that you clearly did.
I agree with you though. The fallout from this video is (hopefully) going to mean a good, critical review of how tasers are used by law enforcement. A very necessary step indeed.