We've heard a lot over the last several years on reality of the emerging of new media. Many touted it as more real and honest than traditional media, and in many cases that has been true.
In the case of Andrew Meyer and his scripted escapade at a John Kerry event, it shows while everything is changing, many things still remain the same.
I say it was scripted, because when you watch the video here, it shows you someone that had things planned, as what he was saying and what was happening are two different things.
The problem we now face in the Internet media world especially, is the ability to change and touch up photos and video to make them back a story up, or tell the story we want people to believe.
Some of the video in this case, for instance, was cut by video uploaders to show the key points of what happened at the event. The problem is it took the event out of its context, and in many cases only showed the student as if he was being attacked by police for simply speaking his mind; which was far from true, as a number of people at the Kerry speech confirmed.
While new media, citizen journalists and technology give us new opportunies to see stories we may never had in the past, the same human nature resides in all of us, and as this story shows, video can be cut and touched up before it's presented on the Internet.
As this story shows, just because something is on video, doesn't mean it's the story that really happened. When you view the two videos I put up here, they tell the story a bit different than the other. One gives more context, while the other mostly shows the action.
All these changes reveals we still must be cautious in how we view stories, whether they're text, audio or video. Technology has created the ability to edit a story and tell it in the way the producer wants it to be consumed. It no longer matters whether that producer is professionally trained, or editing their cell phone video.
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