With the proliferation of social broadcasting, it is not unusual to see bloggers, video bloggers or covering prominent personalities in their blogs or podcasts. With our handy cameras always ready, it is indeed easy for us to shoot still pictures or create video clips of the celebrities we happened to see and show them in one of our episodes.
But did you know that personalities some time feel awkward when somebody shoot them even in their most ordinary days? It is true that we wanted to be popular but none of us want to be covered and be published here and then.
I just read this commentary by Dave Winer, a well-known personality who pioneered the development of weblogs, RSS and podcasting. He requested that if you want to point a camera at someone, ask for permission before you start recording. If the person refused, then simply smile and say ‘No problem.”
So I think, as podcasters, we should know how to respect the private lives of people no matter how ordinary they are or how famous they are. Perhaps, we can casually blog or talked about them in our show but never record a video without their approval.