Citizen Media Beats Big Media, YouTube Blows The Whistle

This brief article explores an example of how e-enabled "citizen journalism" can be used to spur traditional, mass media coverage of a story - perhaps providing "further evidence that the Internet has given the average person a way to be heard." It describes the experience of a whistle-blower who, in August 2006, used YouTube - a free video hosting website which allows users to upload, view, and share video clips - as a medium for sharing his concerns about a financial transaction being carried out by his employer at the time, Lockheed Martin.

According to the piece, engineer Michael De Kort "contacted every single mass media outlet on television and probably 75 separate reporters at different newspapers" after his then-employer Lockheed Martin sold the U.S. Coast Guard US$24 billion worth of refurbished patrol boats. De Kort wished to share his concerns about what he considered shortcomings in the boats' security cameras, communications abilities, and cold weather capabilities. When the mainstream media failed to pick up on his story, De Kort posted a 10-minute video on YouTube (click here to view it). Although De Kort lost his job, his allegations were subsequently reported in the Navy Times, and then picked up by several news organisations. (Between August 29, when The Washington Post broke the story, and August 30 (at 5:00 pm), viewings of De Kort's video rose from 8,000 to nearly 50,000).

Though he describes De Kort's efforts as "terrific", Edward Wasserman of Washington & Lee University claims that this is "not journalism. It's his story--his side of things." Pete Blackshaw of Nielsen BuzzMetrics characterises this example as the latest permutation of the Web's "consumer surveillance" trend. He explains that "Video has dramatically raised the stakes for companies, and now the government, because it tends to be more viral" - as well as more persuasive...