Chinatown and the First Amendment

I was in Chinatown this afternoon when I had my first journalistic run-in with the police.

I had decided to go to Chinatown, in Manhattan’s Lower East Side, after a friend of mine reminded me last week that the Chinese New Year was fast approaching. He lives in Queens but his parents are from China and, from a young age, he’s gone almost every year to Chinatown’s New Year celebrations, which basically span two weeks.

“I bet there’s a great story somewhere in there,” I thought to myself.

Then my friend began describing how on the first day of the New Year dance troupes draped in colorful dragon costumes parade around the neighborhood all day. Throngs of people crowd the streets to watch, while the dancers attempt to bring good luck to local stores and ward off evil spirits.

Ah hah! There’s the story!

“The festivities used to be really crazy when I was a kid,” my friend went on. “There were firecrackers going off all over the place. Imagine, entire streets just covered in smoke and firecracker papers. When Giuliani became mayor he really clamped down on that stuff, though.” ---Thanks Giuliani.

I had a plan: take out a camera from school, get good footage of the dancers and their costumes, then try interviewing storeowners, the dancers themselves, and bystanders. In the end it didn’t

work out. I got great footage -which I’ll soon post- but couldn’t get interviews.

The Chinese community is pretty insular, so fat chance they’re gonna talk to some guy who just showed up to their neighborhood with a video camera, right? Add that to the language barrier. Most people I approached didn’t even seem to understand what I was asking.

Then I ran into the police. I was with my friend at the corner of Mott and Bayard Streets when I saw a couple police officers confiscating cotton candy from some Hispanic (central American looking) street vendors. Evidently, they lacked a permit (or something). From across the street, I began filming the cops.

One of the cops saw me and started walking my way. He wanted me to stop filming. "excuse me, do you mind, sir?"

Now, these cops were doing their job, and they didn’t seem to be treating the vendors unfairly. But if there’s one thing I learned from last semester’s Law and Mass Communication class, it’s that the First Amendment guarantees you the right, whether you’re a journalist or private citizen, to film anyone and anything in public. If you have a problem with that you can talk to Thomas Jefferson.

So, I told the guy I would not stop filming. He asked to see “some ID.”

This is where the press pass NYU gave me a few months ago comes in handy. You wanna intimidate me? What’s that saying Mark Twain came up with? Never pick a fight with someone who buys ink by the barrel. 

Unfortunately, I left the pass sitting on my dresser. So I took out my wallet, and unfurled it to the central translucent sleeve where I keep my New Jersey issued driver’s license. “Here’s my ID.” I should’ve shown the guy my Chilean ID. Have fun reading that Cédula.

“No, you gotta take it out of the sleeve,” he said. I took it out and gave it to him.

“Is there a problem, officer?”

“Yeah, you’re acting suspicious.” He emphasized the “spish” in suspicious. Then he walked over to the police van. He must have been absent the day they taught the First Amendment at the Police Academy. His partner, mind you, was still dealing with the cotton candy vendors.

He took out his pad, wrote my name, address, and license ID number and then passed the ID back to me. I guess he was satisfied. “Thank you,” he said.

“No problem, officer,” I responded with a contemptuous smile. That was that (if it happens again I’ll have the mental clarity to ask for his name as well).

My friend stood off to the side the entire time, probably just laughing. So what’s gonna happen now? Will I be barred from Chinatown? Will they start a file on me at some downtown precinct? Will I get a ticket?a summons?

In all likelihood, they probably won’t do anything. But if I do get something in the mail I’ll definitely contest it. That cop never had a leg to stand on. Ask Thomas Jefferson. Thank you First Amendment.

Oh, and I still got the footage.

New York, NY

This past Friday was my last day at work before I start my internship at the Daily News. I’m really going to miss the paycheck and (some) of my colleagues. But, regarding money, I have to sacrifice now try to accomplish my dream. And living with the parents keeps bills to a minimum.

You know what else I'll miss? The view. Here are some shots from the office high up at 7 World Trade Center.

Looking North up the Hudson. New Jersey to the West.

Ships going to port. That's Jersey and Staten Island in the distance.

Midtown.

Sun Setting over New Jersey and Staten island.

My New Story on Pavement Pieces

Nearly two million well-wishers descended upon Washington D.C. as Barack Obama was sworn into office earlier today. For the millions of others who were unable to attend the inauguration and couldn’t watch it on TV, there was a third option: watch it online.

But online viewing wasn’t as easy as social networkers thought.

Lindsay Wells, a 26-year-old teacher and Obama supporter, sat in a N.Y. Starbucks with her laptop resting on her knees trying unsuccessfully to hear Obama’s speech The video kept freezing and was very choppy, which Wells attributed to an overabundance of users attempting to view the video at the same time. What’s more, CNN’s website didn’t have enough bandwidth and thus couldn’t support all of its subscribers. Frustrated, Wells resigned to listening to the audio without the video of the inauguration events. It wasn’t ideal, but she claimed to have no other option.

“I don’t own a TV,” she said.

The process was supposed to be easy and a plus for adults and students who didn’t have access to a television at noon. Once signed onto Facebook, users registered for the event. They were then directed to click on a link to CNN Live where they could watch a real time streamed video of the Inauguration, complete with a right hand sidebar to follow their friends’ status updates. By Tuesday morning, over 1.2 million users, both in the U.S. and abroad, had registered to watch.

In a rare merger, the popular online social networking site Facebook teamed up with CNN to offer its users a live streamed video of today’s Inauguration, and many New Yorkers were signing on.

Jacqui Kinner of upstate N.Y. also experience technical difficulties with Facebook’s live coverage of the inauguration. Like Wells, she had arrived in Starbucks eager to watch from her laptop. Unlike Wells, she didn’t receive the audio. An unpromising message popped up on her screen: “You made it, unfortunately so did everyone else.” She was then put a digital waiting line.

“I guess I should’ve found a TV,” Kinner lamented.

Informations specialist Ray Wong felt the poor video feed was inevitable. “That’s what happens when you have millions of people who don’t have TV access,” he said. Adding that he guessed that the majority of viewers were people at work or on the go.

According to the Los Angeles Times, CNN’s live inauguration video streaming set web traffic records. By 1:00 pm Eastern Time, 18.8 million viewers had logged on to watch the video. This well surpassed the previous record of 5.3 million viewers logged onto CNN on Election Day.
To assuage irritated viewers like Wells and Kinner, CNN will replay the live video at 9pm and midnight.

Here's the Link.

Multimedia Class

I sat cooped up in a room for most of the last five days. But I wasn’t alone. I had registered for a free, week long, multimedia course the NYU journalism department had arranged for the winter break. I, along with five other students, spent the week learning how to shoot and edit video and record and edit audio.

We learned how to use the equipment (which was intimidating at first) and what type of shots to capture on the first day. On Tuesday we went out and got stories-- I chose to do mine on halal food cart vendors in lower Manhattan (their business is way down).

Then we spent the rest of the week editing. I composed two pieces: a radio clip and a separate video. How’d they turn out? I was told they were both,“good, for someone who’s never done it before.” Which, to state the obvious, means they both sucked.

The important thing was to learn the skills though. I felt like I really learned a lot. And it was a ton of fun. Especially the video stuff. It’s gonna immensely help me down the road. I’ve decided that, for every article I write this semester for class, I’m also going to shoot a video.

Some things I learned:

• Start with a close up. That helps catch people’s interests.
  
• Film from a bunch of different angles. You’ll only use three to four seconds from each shot.

Welcome 2009

In the New Year tradition I was all set to write up a summary of the past year. I got all the way up to September when I thought of something I heard a wise man say that month; something that made me stop writing dead in my tracks.

One night last September I attended a speech given by Shimon Peres, the current President of Israel. The Israeli Presidency is largely ceremonial- the Prime Minister holds the real power- but the aging Peres is an important political figure and, besides having occupied virtually every Israeli cabinet post, won a Nobel Peace Prize along with Yitzhak Rabin in 1994.

He was in town for the United Nation’s yearly General Assembly meeting. In between UN sessions he came to NYU to make a speech, during the course of which he remarked: “Don’t look to the past to solve today’s problems. The past is what got us here. The past is a mistake.”

Take from that what you will. For me: 2008, whether good or bad, is done. Don't dwell on it. Here comes 2009.