Posted on 04/22/2006 4:13:52 AM PDT by Panerai
A provocative and controversial new Web site is calling on “everyday people” to arm themselves with video cameras and catch hypocritical pols who are up to no good - and mealy-mouthed journalists “sucking up” to them.
It’s called AmbushTV, and its creators are looking for any juicy footage they can get their hands on.
They want video of lawmakers who “talk tough on immigrants” but hire them to work in their homes. They’re also eager for footage of members of Congress who use private corporate jets when traveling to campaign events.
And it’s not just lawmakers they’re after. They also want video of journalists “sucking up to a politician.” They even offer tips for wannabe reporters. “Don’t be a wimp! Push for an answer. If your subject storms off - keep the video rolling,” the site says.
Yehudi Mercado of Texas, who launched www.AmbushTV.us this week, says he got tired of complaining about politics with colleagues every day at lunch and decided to so something about it.
“We’re sort of looking at it as an expansion of our press pool,” said Mercado, 32, who likened it to video blogging.
Brent Cunningham, managing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review, said he doesn’t have a problem with the idea of citizen journalism, but noted the potential for problems with AmbushTV, such as doctored video.
“There’s just going to be an ever-increasing number of this kind of thing and it’s not necessarily bad,” Cunningham said. “It probably grows out of a fairly well-intentioned idea.”
Emerson College professor Jerry Lanson raised the specter of videos acquired in unethical ways. “It seems a little dicey to me,” Lanson said. “It might be interesting, but I suspect that it also could be “The Howard Stern Show” version of citizen journalism.”
(Excerpt) Read more at news.bostonherald.com ...
This looks like a leftist enterprise to me. Check it over. See what you think.
I like the one about xxx-president Clinton laughing and joking coming out of Ron Brown's funeral -- until he spotted the camera, then instantaneously switched to weeping and wailing.
Good idea to remind our employees that they ARE our employees.
They say they are non-partisan but it seems obvious who *they* think are the "bad guys":
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To get the ball rolling, AmbushTV is setting a “bounty” in the form of an old West-style “Wanted” poster that features five categories of offenses:
* Immigration Hypocrites – video of members of Congress who “talk tough on immigrants – but hire an illegal immigrant at home for child care, yard care or other work”;
* Impeachment Flip Floppers - “members of Congress voted for Articles of Impeachment against Bill Clinton in 1998 for lying about sex, but defend President Bush today for one or more of the following offenses: authorizing the leak of classified information about an undercover CIA agent, warrantless wiretapping of U.S. citizens, and lying about the grounds for the war in Iraq”;
* Mile-High Corporate Club - “U.S. House and Senate members who use private corporate jets for traveling to campaign events and other purposes … You can do the homework yourself to check out the ownership of any privately registered aircraft that you see a politician boarding” by using a database site provided by AmbushTV);
* Suck-Up Journalists - “if you work in a news organization -- or if you view raw satellite feed -- and you can capture off-air video or audio of a journalist sucking up to a politician, we want it!”); and
* Hill Hackers - “footage of (sneak smoker and House Majority leader) John Boehner or any other ‘Hill hacker’ that you can get on camera as he or she takes a drag on a coffin nail.”
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They are perpetrating the lie about Clinton's impeachment, and the lies about Bush, for starters.
I wish I had a copy of that video of Hillary Clinton saying that if the allegations against her husband by Monika Lewinsky were proven true, that it would be very serious.
It seems to have disappeared from the face of the earth.
As long as the site doesn't intend sticking it to one party over another....
I love the "new" media. :-)
Excellent Idea!!!! Catch crusty cussing!!
You're talking out of the side of your mouth, Brent: you are a laughable human being.
Assuming the potential for doctored video - could amateurs pull off the shear volume and magnitude of doctored stories that the professionals have been pulling off lately?
No. But then again, I guess that's what makes them "professionals".
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