Summer of Riots

So the arrival of G20 saw the first riot (okay quasi-riot) of what promises to be a summer of unrest in this green and pleasant land. As this may be the first wave of major rioting since the 80's it will be interesting to see how the 24 hour news coverage that we now have will not only cover the riots (lots of hanging around waiting for 'something' to happen I would imagine) but, and more importantly, how it will actually effect the nature of the rioting itself. Tom Wolfe wrote a nice scene elucidating the symbiotic relationship between protest and press coverage in Bonfire of the Vanities. The pic above is a video capture for the BBC's 24 hour news channel and shows an RBS bank being attacked by two protesters/rioters/looters/soap dodgers(revolutionaries?) while what appeared to be around 50 photographers photographed, and that was from the BBC camera's POV so presumably there would have been another 50 or so on this side. So a ratio of 100 camera men to two rioters??? What will be interesting this summer is that most of the footage that ends up in the public domain will have been shot by members of the public and/or the rioters themselves. As sites such as google video and youtube exist to make a profit via advertising it would be interesting to see what targeted advertising could appear next to such footage. Interesting times ahead...