With cellphone video, little brother is always watching
Comedian Michael Richards (Kramer of TV's Seinfeld) launches into a racist rant at a West Los Angeles comedy club. A police officer repeatedly uses a taser gun on a student in the UCLA library. A high school teacher calls a student a homophobic name. Another yells at a student for not standing during the national anthem. These events were captured on small digital cameras or cellphones with video cameras. All were posted on the Internet. And all drew national - even international - attention to events that in years past may have remained relatively contained or even hidden.
Welcome to the era of citizen journalism.
"Video empowers the individual against big brother," says Jeffrey Cole, director of the Center for the Digital Future at the University of Southern California.
