Video and Print

A little while ago I blogged about Kurt Eichenwald's expose of the life of Justin Berry, a teen who had been webcamming for money since he was barely a teen. He's 18 or so now, quit the business, and turned in evidence.

It turns out there's an associated video interview which resembles those you see in 60 minutes, so I watched it, and noted how the video content is different from the written content.

The written article has a lot more information, as written articles generally do, and is often the reason I prefer reading news than watching it. But there's something you get in video, and it's hard to say whether it's more or less honest.

The first thing that strikes you about Justin Berry is that he seems like a normal kid, except that, oddly enough, he smiles a lot, and furrows his brow as he answers questions, as if puzzled, looking quizzically. If anything, he resembles a child star and I thought, in appearance, he resembled something like Macaulay Culkin.

Culkin's actually a good similarity, not just based on the superficial similar looks, but really, Culkin's life. Culkin starred in the Home Alone films and was the next big child star. His parents were managing his life. I can't say I remember much of the details, except, much like Drew Barrymore, his interaction with his parents was troubled, and what seemed like an innocent childhood, when brought in the light of public scrutiny and the untold wealths of acting, lead people--kids, parents--to act out. Not to say such acting out (yelling, screaming, lying) doesn't occur among those with less money, less means, but that it seems more magnified in the acting business.

Culkin dropped out of the acting business for a while, and has resurfaced some, doing independent movies. Barrymore has really come back despite a life of drugs and scenes that might come out of Mommie Dearest.

But this story's different, because Justin isn't a film star, his name isn't well-known, and yet many of the things that happened to him, albeit to a different degree, and to a much smaller, much intentedly focused audience, isn't that far removed from what happens to child actors.

For one, Berry is comfortable in front of the camera. He's used to smiling---a lot. He has an easy charm about the way he presents himself, so much so that you don't realize that most kids his age are really awkward in front of a camera. Watch a college-aged football player being interviewed, and you realize that despite their media popularity, many of them lack the polish to be on camera. We're so used to watching TV actors who are literally trained to be good on television, that we don't realize how unusual that is.

To be sure, programs like 60 Minutes often have guests that also seem comfortable in front of the camera. But I suspect that they prefer not to have people stammer in front of cameras, and probably make difficult decisions about people who aren't good in front of the camera. The key, I suppose, is keeping answers focused, and letting the interviewer push the discussion so the interviewee doesn't have to carry the weight of sustaining the conversation.

Much like the article, Eichenwald presents himself as the objective interviewer. He's balding, has the mannerisms and distancing of a reporter, and the interview isn't so much different from that of Mike Wallace or Ed Bradley. If anything, 60 Minutes tends to be far more manipulative, and that is quite telling about the investigative media.

Before there was 20/20, before there was Dateline, there was the venerable 60 Minutes, which often did quite well in the ratings. This show had the veneer of journalistic integrity with the dispassionate reporters all heading into retirement age, lending authority and gravitas to the situation, their uninflected voice giving the illusion of impartiality.

And therein lay the problem of such programs. They seemed like news, when they were advocates, and that's why they were so popular. Go watch a few segments of 60 Minutes, and you discover that they often present two sides, say, a whistleblower and that person's employers who have since fired them, and you find yourself rooting very strongly for one side.

Why is that? Isn't 60 Minutes impartial? Well, no. This is the secret of their popularity. They make it seem like they're presenting both sides arguments, but it always works out that one side is, by far, the good guys, and the other, the bad guys, and by the end, you're despising the bad guys. You've been roped to believe exactly what the makers of the segment want you to believe.

To be sure, had you collected the evidence yourself, you might have come to the same conclusion, but that's not the point. The point is you are being manipulated. Were it, say, some interview about the inner workings of how the interest rates are adjusted, you'd be bored out of your skull. Such segments never make it on the air because it lacks the emotional investment from the viewer.

20/20 caught onto this formula, mixing serious segments where you'd root for one side, with offbeat segments often starring John Stossel. Even 60 Minutes wasn't relentlessly serious. They, too, would have feel good segments about Martina Navratilova, or about some music star.

What's clearly missing from this generally pleasant interview is the agenda that Eichenwald has, which is that he is completely aghast by this entire situation. His calm misdemeanor throughout doesn't even begin to scratch the surface of how thoroughly frightened he is of this world he knew nothing about, and how compelled he is to do something to stop it.

You only get a sense of this by the word he chooses, the questions he asks. In particular, he uses the phrase "adult pedophiles" and "pedophiles" quite frequently, and for that matter, so does Justin Berry. Is it accurate? What exactly is a pedophile anyway? It's important to ask this question because the word is so overloaded with stigma that it can be difficult to think of this term with any degree of objectivity, and is precisely the reason the term is used. It evokes a sense of disgust and a desire to protect.

But, to the definition. Wikipedia presents some information about pedophilia. There are several issues at hand. Age is one. Some people distinguish between people who are sexually interested in pre-pubescent kids, so, for boy, before the age of about 12, and for girls, maybe a little younger, and hebephiles,
which refers to a sexual interest in adolescents, presumably teens.

Justin was 13 when he first started his webcam, and presumably didn't hit his popularity until he was closer to 15. Now, most people would still find having thoughts with a minor to be abhorrent, but it's even more so when you think of it with someone pre-pubescent.

Pubescence, almost by definition, is about the changing of the body that involve developing sexual organs. For women, it is the development of breasts and the start of menstruation, i.e., the ability to have children. For men, it's more about the ability to produce semen. For both, there are other characteristics, mostly involving hair growth, the deepening of the voice. This is a period of transition as kids are becoming adults.

It's also a period where many teens are beginning to experiment sexually. Many teens, by the time they are 17, have already had their first sexual experience, but there are even teens who remember having sex at 13 or 14, what might seem, to some, like an extraordinarily young age. Often, this happens with say, a friend of an older brother or sister.

There are laws against sex with minors in the U.S. primarily because this period of time is very confusing for teens. While most people would forgive, say, two teens who are in a sexual relationship (are both pedophiles?), because they are both immature, and at least, they are close in age, people become queasy when the one person is significantly older than the other. Even perfectly legitimate relationships between 40 year olds and 20 year olds (think Hugh Hefner) are seen as manipulative, with the older flaunting wealth and the younger seduced by the maturity and the opportunity to buy whatever.

Is it unhealthy to have these thoughts? Ads push youth and sexuality, particularly, Calvin Klein, Abercrombie and Fitch. Most of those portrayed in the ads are usually between 18-25, which is just beyond the age that camwhores are, but not always. Camwhores themselves could be between 18-25 as well.

Remember Britney Spears? How old was she when she jiggled her way onto the male consciousness? How many men, even significantly older men, were turned on, and how much did she know that she was being provocative, that she would turn people on? She wasn't a pre-teen. She was a teen. She was already becoming a woman. People would have to remind themselves how old she was and tell themselves it was wrong, and yet, she could look just as she does, and be 5 years older, as she is now, and those thoughts would suddenly be fine again.

The reason people are unnerved by this situation is that teens are still emotionally vulnerable. We've automatically been told that it's wrong, but without understanding why it's wrong. It's not that these kids are innocents, because frankly, some of them are far from innocent. It's that they are emotionally raw at that age, and are unable to process their feelings adequately, and in particular, they may be prone to manipulation.

Again, such things already happen to teens by other teens, but in this case, it's the blind leading the blind. Those manipulating are not particularly good at it. In any case, there's something sweet about people of the same age being together. You think of high school proms, and dates to get ice cream, without realizing that modern day high schools are filled with kids who are already thinking about sex, and doing something about it.

It's just that when someone is much older, there's a sense that they are obsessed, beyond normal means, about the situation, and further, that they are able to take advantage of the situation.

I recall being in high school, where a girl, my age, was, by all accounts, having sex with the English teacher, a man old enough to be her father, and in fact, had a son not two years younger than the girl. Was this teacher nuts? Yes and no. The girl herself did not deal well with her own parents, in particular, she had many a fight with her father, who eventually hired a detective to find out what was going on. I suspect, as a sign of rebellion, she wanted to go out with said teacher. Now, he should have said no, and he had to know that the consequences were high: his wife, his son. And yet, temptation can work its ways, and often does (see Election for a movie treatment of this topic).

There was a combination of factors that lead this to happen, yet, it's easy to pin the blame on the predatorial nature of the teacher. I'm not saying that maybe he didn't think about these things, because honestly, I don't know him at all. What I am saying is that when something is so demonized, it's very difficult to treat the subject with any sense of rationality, to see what might be going on.

Back to the story. At some point, Justin also refers to his fans as pedophiles, and, to some extent, this is roughly accurate, because it pushes the boundaries of the definition in at least one major respect: that he was definitely peddling his sexuality. Where Britney hints at showing off her goods, Justin crosses that boundary.

So let's bring up another issue. Kids and drugs. When a teen does drugs, is the teen blameless? When they smoke pot, are they free from blame? Maybe because we think of the people who get kids on pot as just their age, or just a little older, we place the blame squarely on the kids themselves. It's not like parents are coming to schoolyards and selling it to kids, a thought which some might recoil at. But the kid takes some blame.

But why? Some kids say they've learned to say no. Others think it's cool and neat, and try it out. Perhaps they learn even more, that pot , while less harmful than serious drugs like cocaine or heroin, was lumped equally, because people wanted to pass laws that would get blacks into jail, and since blacks were into pot, then voila, let's criminalize that. It's a thought so pervasive that people who have distanced themselves from drugs often do equate pot and cocaine as equally dangerous.

What makes one kid do drugs, and another not do it? Part of it is to deal with problems. There are kids, given the same situation as Justin, who wouldn't have done what Justin did, pure and simple. Even teens realize that they shouldn't do this, and can get away from it. It's not entirely surprising that Justin did not get along well with his folks, and as cheerful as he seems in an interview, this is someone who was, indeed, seeking friends.

And to that extent, those involved were guilty of pushing Justin's emotional state. He wanted someone to care about him, and people were willing to take that role on. But, it's more subtle than that. There's reason to believe that people who wanted to be his friends honestly believed that, honestly deluded themselves into thinking that they were his friends, but if push came to shove, they'd know that without his acts, they'd be offended, and want more from their "friend".

And there's reason to believe that Justin didn't consider these people "pedophiles", at least, not in those terms, though probably the terms weird and scary would be more accurate.

And that gets to the point of the interview.

It strikes me as less than honest, not that the honest truth would be any less harsh, but that somehow Justin is seen as something of an innocent, and part of it is that he smiles his way through, when what went on was plenty enough serious on both sides. When he says he was "messed up", that's very true, and yet, for many years, he didn't mind that much. It gave him an odd power trip, it gave him money, and it gave him the warped life, much like a MacCauley Culkin that one can't even begin to imagine.

In particular, what doesn't come across in the interview, but what does somewhat come across in the written piece is that Justin, himself, was manipulative. He knew he had power. He'd ask for thousands of dollars, and he'd get it. I doubt he was Mr. Congeniality all the time, and probably berated fans, then came back whimpering later, begging for forgiveness.

The print version gives you a much better sense of this cautionary tale, that the video doesn't, and the video is, in fact, more likely to lie. Eichenwald being calm and impartial, when he's clearly not. Berry being wide-eye and, well, if not innocent, then possibly disarmingly charming, too much of a regular guy to have ever gotten into this, and really, saying words that he wouldn't have said had you approached him earlier on.

Did Justin really want to "save other kids", or was this impressed on him as a compelling reason by Eichenwald himself? I don't blame Eichenwald for wanting to get Justin out of the mess that is his life, in fact, I applaud it. But I'm sure he had to do as much manipulation as Justin's fans did to get Justin to realize the errors of his way, that if Justin didn't do the right thing, how many others would be hurt? Did he want others to really go through what he went through?

What he doesn't get at is its similarity to drugs, such as smoking or alcohol. You can tell people that they should stop doing drugs or alcohol because of the kind of evil it does to them. And yet, it hides the fact that they were hooked on it, bad, and that it was for lots of reasons they stay hooked.

Camming was a drug to Justin, as it is to many others. From it, he derived attention, power, money, and from it, he derived a warped sense of the world, met with people who could, more or less, lead normal lives, and yet felt compelled to a similar addiction of their own. You'll notice that the fans of his site were not interviewed. Why not?

Simple. They would seem far too normal, far too ordinary, and then they'd have to play up the theme of "evil lurking behind innocence", a Dave Lynchian theme from Blue Velvet. It would be the banality of evil going on, and the demonization would have to be amped up, even as the angelization of Justin is amped up too.

Ultimately, you'll not get an accurate picture of what really happened without other interviews, taking, alas, a more dispassionate (or possibly even sympathetic) view.

And that leads to a film I watched a few weeks ago called Good Night and Good Luck. A film about the life of Edward Murrow. He becomes symbolic of the kind of journalistic integrity and neutrality that journalists in the US inhabit, and yet, it really was this attempt to deal with the witchhunts of Joseph McCarthy, that he goes from journalist to a kind of advocacy.

Other countries are more clear about their biases. In France, if you want a liberal viewpoint, you get a liberal newspaper. If you want a conservative viewpoint, you get a conservative paper. In the end, you get the news shaded how you want to see it.

These days, Fox News is as close as you get to having news shaded the way a certain population wants to see it.

I don't mind that journalists generally want to appear neutral and unbiased. I think that's a strength of American journalism. What I do mind is when the try to lend the weight of unbiased journalism to something they clearly have bias on, and while Eichenwald doesn't entirely hide this fact, he also doesn't put it completely out in the open.

Were he to point the camera at himself and ask the questions that he should ask, you'd get an interesting answers. What did you think when you first heard the story? How do you react as a parent with three kids? Can you sympathize with the people who went to his site? Can you sympathize with Justin? Is this a kind of Taxi Driver thing going on ("you talking to me?")?

And one other problem with the story, which again, happens with shows like 20/20. It's the story of one person. When you hear one person's story, you get one view, and maybe that view isn't representative enough to tell the whole story. For example, I remember a segment where they send one white guy and one black guy with exactly the same credentials, and everywhere the black guy goes, he's unable to get a fair shake.

But that has to be shoddy journalism at best, seeking out just the kind of people who would act that way, claiming rampant racism. In that segment, the black man tries to hail down a taxi, and no one will stop, which doesn't get to the fact that many taxi drivers in New York City are often Pakistani, just as dark skinned as the passengers they may not be picking up, and yet, the point is to insinuate that these are white guys, and of course, had he been picked up, that part would be left out of the segment, as it doesn't illustrate the point that the writers so desperately want to convey.