Who Is Humphrey Cheung?

Humphrey Cheung is a new kind of journalist.

Let’s call him a tech-journalist

He didn’t go to Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. He didn’t start on a newspaper.

He was an IT guy who worked in tech journalism.  Then, he got bored with his job.  But instead of looking for another job, Humphrey put theory to work, mounted a GoPro camera to his helmet and headed for Libya in the midst of the revolution. And he launched his own site, Warjumper.

His work is ‘first person’ personified.  You are there because you ‘are there’.

Humphey collected hours and hours of HD footage, live, as it happened at the moment it happened.

It’s interesting from several perspectives.

First, it brings a Frederick Wiseman sensibility to war coverage – something you don’t normally see, or feel.  Most of the coverage from Libya was either ‘network’ 1:20 pieces with a lot of reporter stand ups in flak jackets – “I’m here in one of the most dangerous places on earth”, or now, the shaky iPhone video of an amateur.   Cheung’s is different.  He posted nearly two hours of Battle for Galaa on Youtube.  Here’s a sample:

This morning, we had an interesting talk with our friend Ernest Bujok. He has built VJ-driven local TV stations all over Belgium and The Netherlands.  Today, he told us he came across an interesting new piece of technology which allows his VJs to webcast live, in real time, from pretty much anywhere in HD.

It started me thinking what would happen if we could marry Humphrey Cheung’s perspective on war (and other events) to live, real-time webcasting.

We’re used to seeing things in tiny chunks – highly edited.  But a real time feed from the Revolution in Libya or Syria  or anthing else for that matter…..  it’s interesting.  Like Big Brother, but in real life.  24-hours a day.

The technology for this is clearly here. Now.

The question is – what will the impact of this be (as opposed to what would the impact of this be), as this is going to happen.

Nightly TV filmed footage from Vietnam brought the horrrors of that war into American living rooms and drove, to a great extent, the anti-war movement.  What will all war, all the time, 24-hours a day (or anything else for that matter) do to our perception of the world and events?

What would a live feed from Gettysburg or Normandy Beach have done? How about a live feed from Bergen Belsen.

Soon, nothing will be hidden or packaged – and maybe that’s not bad thing.