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Fri Oct 16,2009,
23:26 GMT
Thoughts on the University of Western Ontario Arrest Video
Posted by Hal
I’ve been thinking about the video recently posted to YouTube showing a young man being subdued and handcuffed by police in a University of Western Ontario campus building. The story has been getting widespread coverage in Canadian newspapers. I googled some key words and found it’s been reported everywhere from the CBC to the Winnipeg Free Press to The Medicine Hat News.
Normally, a minor incident like this wouldn’t merit much or any coverage in, say, The Toronto Star or the Globe and Mail. But because there is video that they can embed in their various online editions, what would normally be no story is big news. But what’s the news? The papers don’t really know what to do with the story. They need to find some way to justify this story beyond “arrest of college student who is probably having some kind of mental breakdown and will hopefully get the help he needs and continue on with his life.” That doesn’t justify coverage. So for the Star, which has offered two pieces on this already, most recently “Violent campus arrest sparks YouTube furor”, the story is that the video is stirring up outrage and scandal.
But the Star article, and other similar stories about this incident, provides very little concrete evidence to suggest that many people are actually upset about the actions of police. The Star quotes anonymous posts to YouTube. Guess what? On YouTube a video of a guy picking his nose can “spark a furor.” No named students are quoted complaining, no protests are noted, no family members are documented expressing their outrage and vowing to sue. The Star doesn’t even bother to quote the guy who posted the video who writes on his YouTube page “I posted this as a witness to the event, from the scene, not because of any agenda.” Better ignore that statement since the main note of protest that the papers seem to be relying on is the fact of the video itself. The feeling is obviously that because someone took a video and posted it to YouTube, and because that video shows the police using force on someone, the video must have been shot and posted in order to function as some kind of protest.
Alas, there is no protest and the video is not particularly shocking, scandalous or revealing. The reason this is being reported nationally and even internationally is because there is a real video of real people in a real violent situation in an attention getting place (a college campus). That’s why the articles, like the Globe and Mail’s “Video of forceful arrest on campus sparks online debate”, don’t seem to be anything in particular. Because the real story is that there is a video of a “forceful arrest.” Beyond that, there’s no reason — from a journalistic, sociological or even a crime deferent point of view — to have this story be reported outside of the local area and campus media.
The headlines elsewhere should basically read: “Here is a video of a violent struggle. Enjoy.”
The Bloggist
Hey, I’m Hal Niedzviecki. I’m a writer/thinker who lives in Toronto, Ontario, Canada with my wife and daughter. Up till now I’ve always considered myself a private person. But at the same time I’m fascinated by people who effortlessly open themselves up to the whole world. So I’ve… more...
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