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The night after Obama’s election was a time for celebration for most people (although obviously not John McCain) with parties, drinking and general fun.  However for one British journalist the night became a bit of a nightmare when he became an overnight star on YouTube.

Sitting in a corner on a laptop he is approached by a cameraman, who asks him a few questions about himself and the election.  Adam Smith (the journalist) is obviously quite drunk, but talks fairly coherently about why he is there and who he works for (Birmingham Mail in England), but then it all went wrong.  When asked about an article he is writing at the moment he says that he has copied and pasted it off the BBC website, and then goes on to resign from his job.

The next morning he got a shock when he realized that the video had been put on the Internet with two comments that he did not want to make on there.  Admittedly he strongly denies the plagiarism (although this does highlight the problem) but his resignation, stated whilst in a drunken stupor, still stands.  This is not surprising when you consider that he ended his monologue with “F*** you, I’m doing what I want to.”

This was a blow for him, as although he was part of a 60 man redundancy program, he now may not receive a pay out as it was him who resigned, and he has the wondrous YouTube to blame.  But although this is an interesting story it plays a bigger part in identifying the society that we live in today, in which anything you say can be broadcast around the world in seconds.

Is this an invasion of our privacy?  Is it bad that we can’t say anything behind peoples backs with out them knowing?  Is there any way to reverse this trend?  Almost inevitably not, as so many people now have the ability to take video on there person all the time, but surely this is a bad thing?  It would seem you can no longer get drunk in the fear that is your rant at your boss will be viewable on the Internet the next day.

Or perhaps it is good that we are being held account to our drunken manners and stupid statements?  I cannot answer these almost philosophical questions, but is definitely a point that need to be made.  For Adam at least he plans to set up his own magazine, but many others may not have plans to fall back on, and it is possible that more famous scalps may be taken in this growing trend.

Source [IndependentNewspaper]
Video [YouTube Video]