A year ago, on January 06, 2008, I wrote and posted “Do NOT Tamper With Your Comments!”. At the time, I offered “Turn On Moderation” as an alternative:

Bill: “Turn On Moderation – Make it so that NOBODY’S comments make it to personalblog or widgetblog unless YOU approve them. That way, when everything ends up positive, you just look like you spun the situation by only letting the comments through that you liked. This is DIFFERENT from changing people’s posts because there’s never anything negative for people to see in the first place, AND dissenting comments don’t become agreeing comments with the same person’s name on the top, posted at the exact same time.”

I wrote that line at a time when I wasn’t doing a lot of commenting on other people’s blogs. I hadn’t achieved a perception of the potential effects of “You *just* look like you spun the situation by only letting the comments through that you liked” on people who visit your blog and make comments that never get approved. Let me tell you about it.

Initial Perception

Initially, when I check out a blog for the first time, I’m thinking that the person who wrote the posts is looking for A DISCUSSION. I’m thinking that if they didn’t want A DISCUSSION, they would have turned off comments.

Actually, one of the very first times I ever posted on someone else’s blog, it was a dating blog and the woman had written flawed advice. With my naive way of thinking about blogs as sort of “personally-hosted forums”, I wrote a nice long comment about what was incorrect about her ideas. To her credit, she emailed me my words, when she could have just deleted them. Hats Off to her for that. :) My ideas could have been lost in space, because I had written them directly to her blog entry form. Last time I ever did *THAT*.

She emailed me my words and explained to me that she wasn’t going to host my ideas about her post on HER site, and if I wanted to, I should place them on MY site. At the time, I wasn’t hip to trackbacks and pingbacks. I had a short email discussion with her expressing my opinion that I thought she was lame for having a blog and ONLY approving comments that made her look good. Pretty soon after that, I found out that this is pretty much status quo. She represents the mainstream and I’m “odd man out” on this issue.

So I approach blogs that are new to me with the naive perception that what I’m looking at represents reality. I feel like the blog post itself is the same blog post that people responded to in the comments and hasn’t been altered after the fact, unless a note is placed there, saying what the edit was. I also assume that the comments represent the honest and factual response of “the community” to the post.

Moderation Experiment

This weekend, I got to experiment with the much-discussed faux pas (which many have termed *BLUNDER* or worse) which I’ve seen called “MemphisGate” (so funny!) or the TheKeyInfluencer situation. You can read about the actual events here, but the point is that A LOT OF PEOPLE felt like putting their two cents in on this situation, which meant I got to post on a bunch of blogs I’ve never heard of before.

Most of my comments went right through, without moderation. Some of them landed in moderation and were eventually approved. Others landed in moderation and then never saw the light of day.

When this happens… When your posts “disappear”, there could be several reasons for this:

1. It was the weekend, and the human moderator only pays attention to their site during weekdays = EPIC FAIL
2. The software never sent out the notification that there was a new comment in moderation
3. The human moderator gets too much email, etc to be able to handle everything = EPIC FAIL
4. The human moerator didn’t think they would LOOK GOOD with your comment on their page, OR they knew damned well that they didn’t have a rebuttal to what you said, so they chose not to approve your comment.

There are more possibilities, but let’s consider how someone might perceive you IF they choose to believe that you didn’t allow your post on their site because it makes them look bad or brings up points they never considered and have no counter-argument against….

All of a sudden, your site is now a show. It’s spin. It’s not an honest representation of “the community”‘s thoughts about what you posted. There’s no need to read your comments, because the best we can hope for is HALF of the story. It’s like reading the recommendations section on linkedin. The only comments there are going to be BENEFICIAL to that person.

So now, we have to wonder WHY you’re only accepting SOME comments and rejecting others. Is it that you really didn’t think out what you posted, and you’re not prepared to intelligently debate it? hmmmmmm……

Like I said in “Social Media Experts? (SMEs)”, there are a lot of DERIVATIVE posters on the internet. Basically what they do is Ambulance-Chase and blog about whatever the current hot topic is in hopes that they might get some traffic. Apparently, we’re living in a “me too” culture, where people see a chance and then hop on the bandwagon and go ME TOO! ME TOO! without really having anything intelligent to ADD to the discussion. The problem with doing that is that when people bring up things you never considered and that you have NO REBUTTAL FOR because you stole someone else’s ideas in the first place, you can’t say ANYTHING without looking even worse, so the best deal is to make sure that post is never seen at all on your site.

What Difference Does This Make?

The reason this is important is that discussions jump off immediately on the internet, and then you have a small window of time to get your two cents in before people forget about it entirely and move on to the next instant scandal. If someone says “I don’t like X” and then you type “This is why X happened” and hit enter and then see “Your comment is awaiting moderation” and then your comment never sees the light of day, you’ve wasted the time it took you to think up and write that post… AND you may have lost the idea ENTIRELY if the comment’s never approved. Even if your comment shows up two days later… It’s too late. The conversation’s already over. People have already decided that you didn’t have anything to say.

So… While the blog poster gets to look self-righteous because he or she said what they said and gathered a bunch of comments which either agree wholeheartedly, offer neutral points or offer “softball” negative points which the blog owner can easily knock back out of the park, the person who the story was about and the people who don’t see things the way the blog owner does are SOL.

From the side of the blog owner, it’s important to note that you’re losing credibility when people realize you’re just gathering positive statements about yourself. We start to wonder how many OTHER people posted comments that disagreed with you and were deleted… Did they actually OUTNUMBER the positive comments you allowed through moderation? One never knows…

The Solution

Initially, I was going to write this post as a fruitless campaign to get people who moderate their comments to SAY. SO. ABOVE. THE. COMMENT. BOX. so we can avoid wasting time posting something that isn’t going to be seen while the point’s being hotly contested.

Personally, I would LOVE to have that warning so I could:
a) read the post,
b) NOT read any of the positively-skewed comments and
c) move on to the next blog ASAP.

Some people REALLY aren’t diligent about monitoring their blogs, and in fact, their blogs aren’t important to them, but actually something peripheral OR even merely an extension of their job. There has to be a better solution than WONDERING whether your post is going to be approved SOON or AT ALL.

The solution is to have your own Public Relations Machine well oiled and ready to roll at a moment’s notice.

This way, regardless of where or when something jumps off that you need to address, people who decide to Google your name can find out where you represent yourself on the net and go there right now to find out if you’ve made any responses to the current “tempest in a teacup” (hahaha What a great term! :D ).

A good combination of blogging, microblogging and videoblogging or perhaps live streaming would serve this purpose very well.

If the problem’s on Twitter, address it there, leaving “@-comments” for people whose attention need to be called to the fact that you’ve responded in a decisive and timely manner.

If the problem’s on someone’s blog, write your own blog post and make sure you include a trackback to their site. If their site doesn’t accept trackbacks, leave a comment on their site with a link to your site. Unfortunately, you run back into the same “I don’t want dissenting ideas on my blog” issue, but even if your comment and link aren’t approved, you’re still self-expressed and your ideas are still SOMEWHERE on the net for people to find if they care to search for more information about the situation.

There are lots of live streaming solutions to choose from. My current weapon of choice is Ustream (even though I hope they VASTLY improve their co-hosting setup), because it’s quick to set up, rock solid for signal reliability IME (several times, I’ve been “on the air” for six hours at a time without incident) and people don’t have any issues watching from The UK, France, Israel, The USA… AND they’re working on an app to make Ustream available on iPhones, which is going to be a game-changer, for sure. :D

The obvious benefit of being able to “go live” at any time is that anyone who’s interested can make their way on over to your site and hear your explanation “straight from the horse’s mouth”. Also, new posts will be popping up even as you speak, so interested parties can find them, link them in the text chat and the discussion can jump off onto that tangent.

That’s not a good solution for everyone, though haha.. If you don’t know what you’re doing, you’ll probably end up looking WORSE instead of BETTER by live streaming, so if that’s the case, skip audio & video and stick to text where you can craft your ideas, PROOFREAD THEM and run them by assiociates or advisors before you post them to the WORLD. WIDE. WEB. :D

~Bill Cammack

Social Media Category: billcammack.com/category/social-media
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I told my ex-girlfriend not to lie to me… I mean, she was still my girlfriend at the time, and now she isn’t. The reason I told her that was that I was catching her in small, seemingly insignificant lies. VERY VERY small lies… Not even worth telling, to be sure. I explained to her that the most important thing you have in a relationship is trust. Without TRUST, you have nothing at all, because any communication you have with anyone will be tainted… untrustworthy… disbelieved. Lying to me about small things is WORSE than lying to me about important things, because it’s not necessary. If your character can’t stand up to the smallest criticism and you feel the pressure and need to LIE, then you CERTAINLY don’t have the stomach to tell me the truth when it REALLY counts.

WHAT does this have to do with “Technology”, you ask?… Because the same holds true in many situations, *including* posting on the internet. The way a lot of blogs are set up, including this one that I’m posting to right now, after the main entry, there’s a section for comments. This is the place for viewers/readers to weigh in and let you know if they agree OR disagree with what you said, and why.

The benefit of having comments is taking a post from being a soliloquy to being the beginning of a conversation. It’s like having a lecture and then at the end, opening up the floor to any questions your audience might have. *YOU* are just as responsible for and will be held accountable for what happens in your comment section as you will be held accountable for what you post in the main entry. Just like I told my ex… (paraphrasing, hahaha) the way you carry yourself in dealing with comments can make or break your credibility in EVERYTHING ELSE that’s MORE IMPORTANT than your comments section…..

Let’s take a very simple example that everyone should be able to follow:

Let’s say you have a company that sells widgets. Let’s say your business blog is “widgetblog”, and is a blog about widgets. Let’s say you also author “personalblog”, and what you post there has NOTHING to do with widgets, and only to do with your personal life. Unfortunately for you, you can not separate these three things if people know that you’re connected to all of them. Similar to a chain, your credibility is only as strong as the *WEAKEST* link.

Now, let’s say you post that “the sky is blue”. Let’s say that several people post “I agree, the sky IS blue!” and those comments are not tampered with. What do you do when someone posts “the sky is actually grey”? This person has now added their personal opinion to the discussion that you started. Do you leave this dissenting opinion on your site so that people can see the HONEST, TRANSPARENT format of how the discussion actually unfolded?…. OR…. Do you log in as “admin” and CHANGE THAT POST so it now reads “the sky is blue”?

Let’s say you get five more “blues” and two more “greys” and even a “red”… What now? Do you log in AGAIN, and tamper with your comments AGAIN? When someone comes to your post the next day, will EVERYONE be in agreement with your position? Is that fair? Is that HONEST? Is that *transparent*?

Now, in most cases, you can get away with this underhanded behavior. There’s only one thing you have to do to maintain your credibility and look like people agree with you….. Be. Faster. Than. Everyone. Else. That. Reads. Your. Blog!

If you come to your blog, and the dissenting posts have been sitting there for an hour, consider the possibility that SEVERAL PEOPLE may have ALREADY READ THEM and will see you for who you really are and what you’re really doing if you tamper with your comments. :/

What’s the problem if you get caught tampering with your comments?…. “Trickle Up”! :D

If you get caught tampering with comments on PERSONAL posts, your credibility is *SHOT*. You can NOT be trusted. If you can’t be trusted with the comments on your personal post, you can’t be trusted in what you POSTED either. Why tell the truth, when you could make up a convenient lie to make yourself look good? Now, your entire personalblog is tainted. Meanwhile, you’re the same person that writes and moderates widgetblog. Why should we believe that you’re willing to risk your business by allowing people to have opinions contrary to YOUR best interests? Now, the posts AND comments on widgetblog are tainted.

Meanwhile, you’re the owner of the widget company. Why should your character in doing business with someone face to face, shaking their hand and looking them in the eye be any stronger than when you’re posting a business or personal blog? So, unfortunately “this person is a liar” trickles UP to where you don’t want it because you didn’t have the stomach to leave your comments alone and perhaps POST A REBUTTAL? Stand up for your own statements? Explain to the dissenting commenter why you think you’re right and they’re wrong? Seriously. :/

Assuming you feel you’re prone to resort to underhanded tactics to make yourself look good in the future by tampering with people’s comments today… Here are some things you can do that will still make you look like you have something to hide, but there’s no PROOF, like when a statement that was “X” for 45 minutes, suddenly becomes “Y” merely by clicking ‘refresh’ in your browser. :/

Turn Off Comments – Your word is law and that’s it. Anybody who comes to personalblog or widgetblog will get what YOU have to say about things, and that’s it. Nobody else has any say.

Turn On Moderation – Make it so that NOBODY’S comments make it to personalblog or widgetblog unless YOU approve them. That way, when everything ends up positive, you just look like you spun the situation by only letting the comments through that you liked. This is DIFFERENT from changing people’s posts because there’s never anything negative for people to see in the first place, AND dissenting comments don’t become agreeing comments with the same person’s name on the top, posted at the exact same time.

Delete Dissenting Comments – MUCH, MUCH better than changing what people had to say from “X” to “Y” is deleting their comments altogether. That way, you look like someone who can’t handle the truth instead of someone actively cheating to make it look like everyone’s on your side in this situation.

Don’t Blog At All – Really, I don’t understand why some people post things on the net in the form of a blog with comments, when they don’t REALLY want to hear what people honestly think about what they’re saying or doing.

Maybe two years ago, I read something I thought was interesting on someone’s blog. I thought it was very interesting….. as well as COMPLETELY WRONG! :D I explained to her very professinally and clinically WHY she was wrong by posting a comment on her blog. Eventually, I got an email from her saying that she was going to erase my comment, and suggested (to her credit, because I hadn’t saved my post anywhere) that I copy it and post it on my own blog and link to hers.

I wrote back to her, thanked her for not deleting my post FIRST, and explained to her (in not so flowery terms) that I thought she was lame for having a web site where all she wanted on it was her opinions and people that agreed with her position. She was doing a disservice to her readers, because with all of them commiserating and rallying around the flag, it was the blind leading the blind, and they were never going to get to the solution to their problem, because they had the question wrong in the first place.

Since then, I’ve come to realize that many people post NOT to START a conversation, but to appear as if they’re an authority in something. They think that as long as they post something and nobody disagrees, they look intelligent or wise. I now realize that a lot of people use the internet to make themselves feel better or to doctor the results so as to convince themselves that they’re in the right and someone else was in the wrong.

That’s all well and good, however, if that’s the type of person you are, don’t think that people aren’t figuring you out. Don’t think that you’re getting away with tampering with comments or juking stats scot-free. Your credibility’s taking a hit, and you may find out down the line when nobody wants to buy your widgets that it’s because more people than you know saw you tampering with comments on some seemingly insignificant post and decided that your credibility as a businessperson has been seriously undermined by your personal character.

Bill Cammack • Cammack Media Group, LLC

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So, DatingGenius ran into Bookstore-Chick last night… The one that inspired “Take her to the Book Store!” or book-store-technique. She reports that she’s still happily dating Bookstore-Guy, so that’s a good testimonial for the technique! DatingGenius is happy for them. :D

As usual, which is why I gave Sorcha her propers for speaking her mind and sharing her opinion… It turns out that Bookstore-Chick *READ* the post, knowing DAMNED WELL that it was entirely about HER… DID *NOT* reply to the thread, positively or negatively, DID *NOT* make any other attempts to contact DatingGenius, probably WOULD NOT HAVE mentioned anything at all, if I had not brought it up, AND asked her if she had read it AND what she thought of it….. :D

Not only did she read it, she had Bookstore-Guy read it as well. Same deal. Zero communication. I guess this is why they’re called BOOKSTORE guy and girl and not INTERNET guy and girl! :D Anyway… They’re not the point here…

So Bookstore-Chick shows up all late to the hangout. She also brought her ok-looking female friend with her.

NOTE: From the dim lighting in the spot, and being pretty well alcoholized by the time they showed up, her friend actually qualified as “cute”. However, DO NOT mention this to chicks off the bat. Make sure they know that you think they’re “ok”, or my personal favorite, “alright”.

Yo! You saw that chick? :D
Yeah… She’s aiiite. :/

Do NOT let chicks get souped up on themselves off the bat. It’s a HORRIBLE bargaining position, and you’ll be working your way out from under that one for-EV*A*R.

This presented DatingGenius with a problem…. The problem of CONTEXT. Under normal circumstances, by that time of the night, DatingGenius is verbally fighting against 5 or 6 people, siting around a table trying to bash either him as an evil, despicable, dastardly, underhanded individual or bash his theories! >:D This is a progression, however. I don’t walk in the door kicking game. We meet and greet, have some boring fun, then it’s time to get down to the nitty-gritty! :D Bookstore-Chick had already been through this process… Actually, it was HER mentioning all HAPPILY that she was taken on a date to a BOOKSTORE that got the festivities jumping off that evening. With her friend (the “ok” one), I received the double-whammy.

First, when I asked Bookstore-Chick if she had read the post, she turns to her friend and says like three words, and her friend is like “OH… THIS IS THE GUY THAT WROTE THAT?” So I’m like “awwww here we GO!” hahahaha. Second, instead of making it there for meet & greet happy-time social hour, they show up during a heated debate about something like the irrelevance of a chick claiming lesbian status in the grand scheme of whether you’re going to get on or not, so The Kid was in full effect, all gears spinning, battle-mode. So, of course, with this new chick having ZERO IRL context of meeting DatingGenius BEFORE battle-mode, I get into an argument with this chick about bookstore technique.

Usually (and this was no exception), when someone arrives without context to one of my conversations, they make two fundamental errors. 1) They assume that the way I’m talking with the group is how I would tangibly represent myself in a situation of “kickin’ it” with a chick. 2) They assume that what I’m ADVISING for other people is what *I* use, myself. :D

I try to let chicks understand that what they’ve been invited to is the proverbial “locker room”, as in “locker room conversation”, meaning the stuff that guys talk about and KEEP CHICKS FROM KNOWING ABOUT. They are receiving the *BENEFIT* of being treated like a guy and welcomed into the inner circle where we discuss IMPORTANT ish! :D Because they now have dual-citizenship of ACTUALLY being females, but being talked to AS IF they were males, in “the locker room”, they misunderstand my locker-room behavior as my kicking-it-to-a-viable-chick behavior. This is where you start hearing stuff like “I can’t believe you said that!” and “I’d NEVER date *YOU*! :(” blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah blah…..

Think about it like an actual football game. What happens in the locker room? The guys declare that they’re going to go out there and RIP the other team’s HEADS OFF!!! :D ….. Then… What happens when those same two teams EXIT the locker room and get on the field? … That’s right. They SHAKE HANDS! Have you ever seen a boxing-style staredown during the coin toss? Nope! Complete gentlemen. Then, what happens when you try to catch that pass high and away over the middle? CRAAAAAAAAAACK, the middle linebacker smashes you in the ribs! :D

“The Game” is exactly the same way. You don’t bring your locker-room style out onto the field. In the locker room, we’re kickin’ INFRASTRUCTURE. It’s the “WHY?” behind what you ACTUALLY do when it’s Game ON! It’s the real deal. It’s not some bullshit Dr. Phil advice like “buy her some flowers” or “be nice to her”. It’s tactics, techniques and the underlying psychology behind WHY those tactics and techniques actually work. Are chick supposed to like it or be happy about it? No. :D They’re SUPPOSED to be mad about it because they don’t want to believe how easily they’re manipulated. It’s like how this stewardess-looking chick was on “The View” as the girlfriend of this so-called “greatest pickup artist” who looks and sounds like he doesn’t even LIKE WOMEN, and she’s talking about “none of his tactics worked on me… that’s what he liked about me! :D” ….. idiot. Look at YOU and Look at HIM. You.Got.Gamed. He schemed on getting you in the locker room, shook your hand and smiled in your face when you met him and then proceeded to SMASH YOU IN YOUR RIBS when you came floating across the middle after that high-and-away pass.

The second contextual issue with people jumping into these conversations all late is that the assumption is made that what I’m ADVISING for other people to do is what I HAVE TO DO, myself.

I don’t have to do *ANYTHING*. It’s a numbers game. There’s a percentage chance that any given chick will be into me off the bat. Even if that percentage is low, when you apply that percentage in a city that LITERALLY has over 1,000,000 (one million) chicks in it, all you have to do is SHOW UP to get on. You don’t even have to SAY anything! :D I’ve had chicks approach me that don’t.even.speak.English, and I’ve had to get people to translate what they were saying to me.

My advice is for people who are having PROBLEMS with getting chicks to do what they want them to do. I’d like to have more advice for the ladies as well, haha but as you can see, they’d rather LURK on internet boards than chime in and ask a brotha a question or three! :D Anyway, there’s no better tactic than “be the best person you can be, looks-wise and personality-wise”. Just by being better than other people, you automatically go to the head of the class and become a target. It’s the same thing that works for chicks. When that stunning girl walks in the room and everybody’s like :O she doesn’t have to SAY or DO anything. It’s a wrap as soon as she shows up. SOMEBODY in that room wants to give her what she wants…..

Bill Cammack
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If you go out with the same chick for more than one week, the odds begin to increase exponentially that she’ll want to have a kid with you.

Biologically, that’s how women are built. If you consistently hang around them, they start to see you as a viable protector/provider for your pending family.

Meanwhile, the guy’s just happy to have a cute chick to look at and to ‘get on’ whenever he feels like it.

Sooner or later, she’s going to start testing you with questions about the future. SOONER is the time to act, rather than later, once you realize what’s going on. If that whole “family thing” wasn’t in your playbook, and you don’t want to break up with her ASAP and start over with a different chick that doesn’t like you as much (meaning you have more time until “the kid thing” rolls around again), there’s only ONE thing to do…..

…

Buy her a dog. :D

That’s right friends, BUY HER A DOG!!! :D Works every time.

Besides shoes, there are a few things that women *LOVE*. You’ve probably noticed this already in your own relationship. Women love:
A) Attention
B) Feeling like someone needs them
C) Telling people what to do

Once she gets used to fulfilling these three things through YOU, she starts thinking about the next level. Actually… This is why she wants to have a kid with you in the first place… You paid her too much attention, you let her feel like you needed her, and you acted like you were listening when she told you what to do.

So now, she’s asking these LTR / family-oriented questions and you’re like “How the hell did she come up with all this ‘relationship’ stuff? :/” … That’s right… She made it up on her own, with zero prompting or indication from you that you were doing anything but enjoying your time with her.

Lots of guys’ reaction to this is to start acting strange, have WAAAAAAY less sex with this girl in case of an unfortunate mishap, and break up with her as soon as possible for *ANY* reason they can figure out other than “um… I’m not trying to have a kid with you… PEACE! :D”. If you don’t want to go that route, yet have ZERO intentions of having a kid with her… Buy. Her. A. Dog!

You will notice how in society today, women treat dogs like babies.
They carry them around in bags… Yes, women carry babies in bags. You’ve seen those reversed-backpack things they walk around with the kid in.
They keep them on leashes… Yes, women have kids on leashes… go to the mall and check. Extendable too, just like regular dog leashes, except it doesn’t go around the kid’s neck.
They feed them.
They get attention from them.
They tell them what to do.
They feel like the dog needs them. [Interestingly enough, this is a function of the fact that they FEED the dog. The dog needs FOOD, not HER. However, it still fulfills the necessary emotional requirements to deflect her from stopping taking the pill or poking holes in your condom collection that you left in her crib.]
They take the dogs into stores to shop.
They take dogs with them to outdoor cafes and eat lunch together.
They kiss their dogs.
They sleep with their dogs.
Etc, Etc, Etc……

Besides the myriad identical substitution features, she gets to feel like you and she “have something together”. This has the same relationship-maintaining qualities as buying her an engagement ring to deflect her from asking you about getting married, but that’s a different topic. :D She thinks that “buying a dog together” is an indication of commitment / relationship, so roll with it. Meanwhile, as far as I know, dog food costs less than diapers, and if the two of you end up breaking up, you don’t have to pay child support or pay for the dog to go to college.

The other obvious benefit to buying your girlfriend a dog is you don’t have to spin the wheel of fortune wondering what her body’s going to look like after 9 months of stretching and more eating than she *normally* does. Speaking of which… Did you notice how maternity-wear came into style RIGHT AFTER media attention came to how girls were walking around in the streets with “Muffin-Tops”? That would be the amount of flab that hangs out over their belts when they wear jeans that are too small for them and shirts that aren’t long enough to cover that up. Somebody was really smart to start selling pregnancy clothing to girls that aren’t even pregnant. :D

So, yes. Buy her a dog. You get all the same features as a kid (well, minus eventual language ability) with less current expense and ZERO exit expenses like child support or alimony. You maintain your relationship and don’t have to dump an otherwise perfectly good chick. You maintain her figure and therefore your impetus to get physical with her… which was the whole point of having her around in the first place! :D

DatingGenius

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PBS’ “Frontline” is doing a series called “News War: What’s Happening to the News”. Part 3 aired last night @ 9pm, but you can watch it online.

Segment 19 in part 3 is of particular interest to those of us involved in videoblogging, which is, on the simplest level, putting videos on a blog. These videos could be personal. They could be something created or acted out. They could be just about anything…. Except they could also be a documentation of something that happened. For some reason, there’s a debate surrounding the importance of this. It seems completely obvious to me that if you document something and post it for people to see….. right now…… ALL around the world…….. that makes your work just as valid, if not MORE SO than someone who has a job called “journalist” and took some courses explaining HOW they’re supposed to report things and WHAT they’re supposed to report. :/

The first part of Segment 19 features an interview with Andrew Baron, creator of Rocketboom, as well as clips featuring Joanne Colan, current Rocketboom anchor and Amanda Congdon, former Rocketboom anchor, subsequently of Amanda Across America, and now ABC News. There’s also a clip of Amanda interviewing Josh Wolf, who’s currently in jail because of “citizen journalism”.

In another segment of the show, they mention that Amanda ‘made the jump’ to ABC News. I think that’s an interesting piece to the puzzle of “us vs them”, with independents on one side and MSM on the other. I suppose that those who are interested in attempting to invalidate “citizen journalism” could argue that ABC simply hired “on-air talent”. They chose HER and not necessarily “her journalism”.

Andrew says in the piece “… it’s creating a conversation about ‘what is journalism?’”. Later on, apparently referring to text blogs, Nicholas Lemann makes the point that “… there isn’t a lot of original reporting that’s being done by bloggers and citizen journalists… digging out new stuff instead of sort of reprocessing the stuff that other people have dug out already.”

With text blogs, this may be largely true (the lack of original reporting). The bloggers for the most part are dependent upon being able to receive information through some other source, and then their “value added” is their own opinion on the topic or perhaps the fact that they aggregated information and brought it to the attention of their readers. Yes, some people are “on the scene” and report things that they saw or experienced themselves, but a lot of information comes from search engines or what they read in other blogs. This is where I can see the argument of “these people are not trained journalists” being valid because of lack of professional presentation and perhaps also lack of any form of accreditation or expertise in the field they’re blogging about. IMO, that still doesn’t invalidate their opinions or make them necessarily less accurate or worth reading…. but then, that’s what this debate’s all about. :)

With video blogs, I think this is much less true. Granted, there are video blogs that are really videotaped versions of text blogs. Instead of typing the information they got from search engines, people sit in front of a video camera or webcam and talk about it. Not much difference from text blogs there in terms of lack of originality. ANYONE could do it who chooses to use a search engine to look up their chosen topic. What I’m talking about is the ability to show someone, anyone… somewhere, ANYWHERE (that has a viable internet connecton) something that they otherwise would not have been able to see. I don’t see any way that anyone could deny that visual and audio documentation of something that happened can be AS relevant and important, if not MORE SO than a shot, produced, scripted and edited news piece, such as the Frontline piece I’m currently commenting on.

The debate seems to revolve around who’s “qualified” to report news. :) Again, I can see this as more relevant to text blogging, because the words are the entire work. Depending on your delivery, your blog might seem professional or like a “church newsletter”, as Nicholas puts it. When you’re recording something to video and/or audio and presenting it on your blog, your delivery becomes much less important because the video tends to “speak for itself”.

Similar to what Andrew said, I don’t consider myself a journalist. I’m not interested in journalism AT ALL. :) However, as Jeff Jarvis put it, I’ve “performed acts of journalism”. Earlier this month, I was videotaping the Bronx Borough President, Adolfo Carrion’s “State of the Borough” address, and Senator Hillary Clinton happened to show up…. well… so did Senator Chuck Schumer, but who’s counting? :D Anyway… Later that same day, I had blogged Hillary addressing the crowd.

I documented something that happened. There’s no spin to it. The camera just rolled. No sound bites, No b-roll, No scripting… That’s what happened. I consider that to be an act of journalism. Not only that, but it’s currently available. Right Now. Right now, you can click on that picture and watch what happened and make up your own mind about what you see and/or hear. YOU weren’t invited to the speech, but *I* was, and because I documented it, you get to check it out as well. I don’t see how that’s NOT journalism. :)

I think I had my most personally relevant experience with “citizen journalism” when someone crashed Cory Lidle’s plane into a building on 72nd street in Manhattan, NYC.

My sister called me and told me what was going on. When I checked out the local all-day news channel, I saw flames coming out of the windows of the building. I made moves to get to the scene, and by the time I did, the fire was out, but you could still see smoke coming out of one of the apartments. I probably spent a little over two hours between being there and traveling back and forth. When I got back, I turned on the same news channel, and to my dismay and education… I saw the same building I just came from seeing with my own eyes……. and it was still on fire. :/ ‘Matter of fact, they looped that video well into the evening, to the point that it was getting dark outside, and they were still showing bright, daytime video of apartments on fire. I became aware that the fire had probably been put out before I even walked out the door to go see it. :/

That’s part of the importance and relevance of “citizen journalism”. You can report whatever you feel is worth reporting. Did I have sensational video of an apartment on fire? No. The fire was out by the time I got there. Did I have sensational video of a plane on the ground? No. The whole street was blocked off, and I was on the avenue farther away from the crash. I had a video about some smoke coming out of a building that otherwise looked perfectly fine. :) However… That’s what happened, and that’s how it was when I got there.

Maybe I didn’t write a dramatic lead-in script and have someone trained in standard televison delivery to dramatically walk into the frame and pretend that they care. Maybe I didn’t run around interviewing people that didn’t know any more about the situation than I did so I could go back and select ONLY the sound bites that tell the story the way that *I* wanted it to be told. It doesn’t rule out my video as journalism that CBS news didn’t send me down there or pay me or give me the job title of “journalist” or give me press credentials (although their truck came in handy for my still, hehehe). All *I* know is that while my video was showing that the NYC Emergency Response Teams had the situation well under control, people were still coming home that night and turning on their televisions to be strategically fed videos of an apartment building burning in the daytime.

Bill Cammack • New York City • Freelance Video Editor • alum.mit.edu/www/billcammack

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