Bloggers, Twitter, YouTube and Liveleak are winners of the George Polk Award for Videography marking an inflection point for modern news reporting

Neda Agha Soltan killed in the streets of Tehran, captured by cell-phone video and spread around the world

The biggest story of video news story of 2009 was not filmed by a major news network, or by a professional videographer.

It was the cell phone video of Neda Agha-Soltan’s death in the streets of Tehran. Neda Agha-Soltan, a young girl is killed by plainclothes in Tehran

The story wasn’t spread by CBS, BBC or the CBC although it was a reporter who sent me the story when his own network wouldn’t carry it.

The video and the citizen journalists who spread it around the world on the Internet with YouTube, LiveLeak and blogs shared anonymously in the recognition of the George Polk Award. LiveLeak was my source for the video and I posted it again YouTube June 21, 2009 along with the first story. Ironically, YouTube took the video down in October 2009.

Long Island University “Long Island University has announced the winners of 13 George Polk Awards for 2009, including a reporter kidnapped and held by the Taliban for more than seven months and journalists who demanded transparency from the Federal Reserve Board, changed the way professional and youth football leagues deal with head injuries and exposed a state child-care program plagued by fraud and deceit.”

“For the first time in the 61-year history of the Awards, judges have honored work that was produced anonymously. The panel acknowledged the bravery of those responsible for videotaping — and then broadcasting on the Internet — the horrific images of a young woman dying from a gunshot wound during a protest in Iran.”

“This video footage was seen by millions and became an iconic image of the Iranian resistance. We don’t know who took it or who uploaded it, but we know it has news value,” said John Darnton, curator of the George Polk Awards. “This award celebrates the fact that, in today’s world, a brave bystander with a cell-phone camera can use video-sharing and social networking sites to deliver news.”

“The George Polk Award for Videography will recognize the efforts of the people responsible for recording the death of 26-year-old Neda Agha-Soltan at a June protest in Tehran, Iran, and uploading the video to the Internet. Ms. Agha-Soltan reportedly was shot by a pro-government militiaman. The video, which shows the woman collapsing to the ground and being attended to by several men as she lay dying on the street, became a rallying point for the reformist opposition in Iran after it was broadcast over the Internet. Seen by millions as it spread virally across the Web, the images quickly gained the attention of international media.”

It took the Internet and bloggers with their millions of daily posts to make the reporting of this story possible.

Andrew Grove, founder of Intel and the modern computer processor, would call this an inflection point -the “time in the life of a business when its fundamentals are about to change. That change can mean an opportunity to rise to new heights. But it may just as likely signal the beginning of the end.”

“Strategic inflection points can be caused by technological change but they are more than technological change. They can be caused by competitors but they are more than just competition. They are full-scale changes in the way business is conducted, so that simply adopting new technology or fighting the competition as you used to may be insufficient. They build up force so insidiously that you may have a hard time even putting a finger on what has changed, yet you know that something has. Let’s not mince words: A strategic inflection point can be deadly when unattended to. Companies that begin a decline as a result of its changes rarely recover their previous greatness.” Only the Paranoid Survive: How to Exploit the Crisis Points That Challenge Every Company

Caution – video is graphic and not suitable for everyone.

Note – this video is the oldest known copy, posted on YouTube June 20, 2009. The copy we posted on June 21, 2009 is likely a re-post of the YouTube video. We posted a copy again on YouTube but it was taken down in October 2009.

The George Polk Awards

Ranked among America’s most coveted journalism honors, the George Polk Awards have been administered by Long Island University since 1949.They memorialize CBS correspondent George W. Polk, who was slain covering the civil war in Greece in 1948. A committee of jurors made up of University faculty members and alumni select the winners from entries submitted by journalists and news organizations as well as nominations made by a panel of journalists and editors, including a number of former winners.

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