Last night Tim was assaulted by a man wearing all black and with a mask, which is generally considered the garb of anarchists who employ black bloc tactics.  The video of this incident can be found here and here.  The photo of the man who assaulted Tim can be found here.  Tim was also accused  by @OccupyWallSt (post now removed) for helping police apprehend his assailant.

I started two threads on Reddit to try and understand the anger towards the live streamers.  One thread is on the anarchism subreddit and the other is on the Occupy subreddit.  What I got from both sides is that live streaming without consent of the people around can inadvertently give police the information they need to make arrests.  While I understand and sympathize with the protesters not wanting to be arrested, these marches are in public view and the cops have cameras too.  Also, nothing is stopping cops from putting plants in the crowd to document via video (some have suggested Tim is a plant, but I doubt that).  I think sacrificing freedom of expression and speech is not worth the false sense of security.  The transparency that the live streamers offer to these events helps the larger populace experience what is really going on.

I think the best solution would be for the black bloc anarchists to cover their identity (which most already do) and live streamers to point their cameras away when an individual requests not to be filmed.  The violence on either side is not going to solve anything.   I think that the oppositional attitude of anarchists, Occupy protesters and live streamers towards one another is just what the powers-that-be want.

Full disclosure, I consider myself to be philosophically anarchistic, but my ideas with the concept of anarchy do not align with many of the anarchists who are protesting.  I think that the government is a violent institution that no longer has its place in this time (along with the institutions that surround it such as religion and corporations).  I do not agree with black bloc tactics.  I think peaceful protests bring light to the violence inherent to the state, and burning cop cars and throwing glass bottles just further embeds the populace into an attitude that concludes that an anarchic society would be violent and chaotic.  If the protesters want to be violent and destroy property, separate protests need to be organized in order to make the distinction of tactics clear to the world.  Then individuals can freely judge for themselves which is more effective at turning minds and hearts and creating true change for the better.

Let me know your perspective.  I’d be happy to hear it.

Please let us know if you know of any other independent and citizen journalists covering this event.

99% (The Occupy Wall Street Collaborative Film)

Speak Out Tunisia: A Citizen Journalism Training Project

Independent Journalists covering Occupy

@OakFoSho (Spencer Mills)

@TimCast (Tim Pool)

@punkboyinsf

I am sending as much as I can spare to all of the above.  Who deserves your dollar? Also Upvote on Reddit and help these guys get some compensation for their efforts!

Suggested by others:

• @punkboyinsf‘s list

Occupy Atlanta #D17 from Road Rich on Vimeo.

I was in downtown Atlanta yesterday and saw the Occupy protesters preparing to march, so I decided to follow them about. Made for some great video.

Equipment: Canon Rebel T2i
Lenses: Tokina 11-17mm, Carl Zeiss 50mm

In an interview with Current, Tim Pool responded to a question about what citizen journalism means to him. He responded, “Citizen journalism… that phrase confuses me because journalists are citizens. I don’t think you gain any credibility by being an employee for a large corporation. So I like independent journalist. That’s actually the press passes you’ll see, they say independent. To me citizen journalist means independent. You have a blog where you work with your friends to get your information out.”

And that is the issue with the terminology that has emerged from the increase in independent journalists. The phrase citizen journalist was born as a response to corporate journalism, so it has the effect of divorcing the individual reporters from traditional journalism. The danger in this is that those in power can easily make excuses to arrest independent journalists because they see citizen journalism as an illegitimate form of journalism.

I think I agree with Tim on this one and will try to be more conscious about using the term citizen journalism and use independent journalism instead.

How do you define journalism, independent journalism and citizen journalism? Do you think there is a danger in using the label citizen journalism?

Protests are a response to an unequal power system. When one group feels oppressed by another, they express their discontent with that imbalance by taking to the street with their ideas to show that they are not alone in their discontent. It is a process that not only draws a clear distinction between those in power and those who are oppressed, but also one that wakes people up who were not aware of the imbalance in the first place.

The Occupy protests are showing that capitalists have gained power by using the force of government to create corporate bodies, enforce copyright and also influence power. The more accurate term than capitalism for this action is crony capitalism. Crony capitalism is when business groups decide to use the violence of the government in order to allow them to dominate their market.

The reason peace is so essential to protests is because oppression does not exist without the threat of violence. If those who are oppressed begin using violence in order to reestablish the balance of power, ultimately they will be the oppressors. This has been demonstrated in revolution after revolution. As soon as an oppressed group gets its hands on violent means, a few decades later it becomes the power protested against. It’s the best example of a vicious cycle.

Citizen journalism is rising up because it is a non-violent means to bring awareness to the imbalance of power and ultimately cause a shift in power due to the disillusioning effect it has on individuals. It also has the great side effect of making those in power (cops, politicians, bankers) think twice about using violence to oppress, because everyone is watching their actions.

Read more about creative commons licences here.

If you are a citizen journalist looking to use photography in your articles, you can do a simple search on photo sharing services such as Flickr to find creative commons photos to freely use.

The most popular and odd shot of the day was actually taken at Occupy Houston where a red tent was placed over protesters in order to arrest them out of view of the media. (2 minutes in)

Unfortunately New York police were not much better. They pushed around journalists and arrested citizen journalists.

(11 minutes in)

L.A. cops would not allow citizen journalists to be part of the protests.

@OakFoSho also got good footage of the start of the Oakland march on the ports, that is still going on tonight.

(12 minutes in)

There were also many citizen journalist photographers out getting shots of the crowds:

If you have any videos you would like featured on this page, please comment. We will post more photos and information tomorrow after citizen journalists are able to make it home and upload their media.

#whilewewatch – Trailer from #whilewewatch on Vimeo.

Read more at capitalnewyork.com and the documentary’s website whilewewatch.com