Tim Pool gained mainstream recognition in the fall of 2011 during the beginning of the Occupy Wall Street movement that was taking place in Zuccoti Park. An independent journalist, Pool has made his mark in the industry through the use of live stream video feeds of the event that he is covering. He
Tim Pool is an independent journalist from Chicago that gained mainstream attention in 2011 and on through his live coverage of Occupy Wall Street. For 21-hours straight, Pool documented the Zuccoti Park raid in which many protesters were abused and arrested by police. Tim Pool was featured in TIME magazine’s Persons of the Year 2011, TIME’s top 140 Twitter feeds of 2012 and is a TIME 100 nominee.
Tim Pool mainly broadcasts through the use of a smartphone and external battery. His footage is live streamed through UStream and on his website, timcast.com. He allows people to watch the stream and answer questions via a chat feature. He can read the questions, answer them on the live feed, and even point the camera to where people want to see.
His coverage of Hurricane Sandy in New York City last week was very brave and interesting, to say the least. A few days before the hurricane was to make landfall he was sending out tweets, asking his 50,000 followers where they would like him to be posted up for landfall. He and a partner made their way into a building in the middle of NYC, using the building as a home base during the incoming storm. They were located several stories up with supplies and a small generator. During the storm Pool was walking down the stairs of the building showing that the bottom floors were completely flooded, leaving them stranded on the upper floors for the time being.
He gained more mainstream attention in the mass media when CNN, Fox News, etc. reported that the New York Stock Exchange was under three feet of water due to the storm. Pool took matters into his own hands and visited the NYSE during the middle of the storm to find and report that the NYSE was not flooded and was completely fine during the storm.
From the end of the storm and until now, Pool has maintained his presence in NYC for the aftermath of the storm. He has been taking pictures and videos of looters, people rebuilding, etc. He has even documented on twitter how the aftermath of Sandy is turning people to begin price gouging for food, gas, and other supplies.
Tim Pool has built a large following of +50,000 followers on Twitter and his live stream channel reaching +5,000 views in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Pool has made it apparent that traditional journalism is not working and that the future is in the hands of independent journalists that aren’t afraid to go where the news is and report it as it’s happening.
