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Nov. 30th, 2011 09:48 amI find that after staying up to watch the livestream coverage of #OccupyLA all night, I have no patience for the pathetic, vicious complaints of reviewers this morning.
Nov. 30th, 2011
watching LA
Nov. 30th, 2011 06:31 pmI've been tired with a headache all day, though I have managed to knock out all my assignments on time. Right before bed last night I started seeing the tweets about the massive police build up in Los Angeles and the imminent eviction of #OccupyLA. In addition to staging 1400 police, LAPD enacted some crazy, completely bullshit "rules" for media coverage that most media shamefully obeyed. This business of only being badged by LAPD and not being allowed to cover events, to even forbidding journalists in their special press pool from using Twitter was possibly some of the most absurd shit I have ever seen. I could feel the soul of my first journalism teacher gnashing his teeth.
Thankfully, we live in the future and a dude with a backpack full of batteries and electronic parts can run a livestream for hours. So we watched. Mike came out of the bedroom and instead of retiring for the night we put the livestreams up on the television. Sometimes we had four screens open at once, from helicopter views to the shaking hands of cell phones and cameras on the ground.
We saw the fireworks go off, and heard the crowd cheer. We laughed at the thought of people standing in the middle of the empty street, one of those places you would never actually get to stand in normal circumstances. We followed Twitter, which did a better job of keeping us up to date than any local news or national news. The local Fox station had the gall to say "Just because you have a smart phone doesn't make you a journalist" while they were reading tweets on the air. Well, I really think the people with smart phones were taking more risks and creating more journalistic content that some of those "professionals" last night. The OccupyOakland livestream spoke to dozens of individuals, showed the actions of officers in the square and told us what was happening while the local news stations were showing late night talk shows and infommercials.
There was nothing we could do, from thousands of miles away. Only watch. But I think it was important for us to watch, and for LA to know we were watching. The arrests were largely peaceful, the police largely restrained. I think that happened in part because people were watching.
It was scary to watch. It looked like any number of sci-fi films I've seen in the past twenty years. Thousands of officers swarming the park from all directions, including officers in Haz-mat suits. It was chilling to see, because it looked like all those terrible moments made real. This was really happening. This is really happening.
Thankfully, we live in the future and a dude with a backpack full of batteries and electronic parts can run a livestream for hours. So we watched. Mike came out of the bedroom and instead of retiring for the night we put the livestreams up on the television. Sometimes we had four screens open at once, from helicopter views to the shaking hands of cell phones and cameras on the ground.
We saw the fireworks go off, and heard the crowd cheer. We laughed at the thought of people standing in the middle of the empty street, one of those places you would never actually get to stand in normal circumstances. We followed Twitter, which did a better job of keeping us up to date than any local news or national news. The local Fox station had the gall to say "Just because you have a smart phone doesn't make you a journalist" while they were reading tweets on the air. Well, I really think the people with smart phones were taking more risks and creating more journalistic content that some of those "professionals" last night. The OccupyOakland livestream spoke to dozens of individuals, showed the actions of officers in the square and told us what was happening while the local news stations were showing late night talk shows and infommercials.
There was nothing we could do, from thousands of miles away. Only watch. But I think it was important for us to watch, and for LA to know we were watching. The arrests were largely peaceful, the police largely restrained. I think that happened in part because people were watching.
It was scary to watch. It looked like any number of sci-fi films I've seen in the past twenty years. Thousands of officers swarming the park from all directions, including officers in Haz-mat suits. It was chilling to see, because it looked like all those terrible moments made real. This was really happening. This is really happening.