Timothy Daniel Pool (born March 9, 1986) is an American YouTuber and political commentator. He is best known for livestreaming the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011. Pool grew up with his three siblings in Chicago's South Side to a lower-middle-class family. He left school at age 14, educating himself at home through books. Pool identifies his ancestry as Korean, Osage, German, and Irish. Pool's coverage has been carried and syndicated by multiple mainstream outlets including NBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera, and Time. He was covered by Fast Company and Wired. In 2013, Pool joined Vice Media producing and hosting content as well as developing new methods of reporting. In 2014, he joined Fusion TV as Director of Media innovation and Senior Correspondent.
Tim Pool | |
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![]() Pool in 2015 | |
Born | Timothy Daniel Pool March 9, 1986 |
Occupation | Journalist |
Years active | 2011–present |
Notable credit(s) | Producer/host Vice Media |
Website | timcast |
Timothy Daniel Pool (born March 9, 1986) is an American YouTuber and political commentator.[1] He is best known for livestreaming the Occupy Wall Street protests in 2011.[2][3]
Pool grew up with his three siblings in Chicago's South Side[4] to a lower-middle-class family. He left school at age 14, educating himself at home through books.[5]
Pool identifies his ancestry as Korean, Osage, German, and Irish.[6]
Pool's coverage has been carried and syndicated by multiple mainstream outlets including NBC, Reuters, Al Jazeera, and Time.[7][8] He was covered by Fast Company and Wired.[7][9][10] In 2013, Pool joined Vice Media producing and hosting content as well as developing new methods of reporting.[11] In 2014, he joined Fusion TV as Director of Media innovation and Senior Correspondent.[12][13][14]
Pool is the co-founder of Tagg.ly, a mobile application for watermarking photos and videos in order to allow copyrights to be withheld by users.[15]
Pool uses a live-chat stream to respond to questions from viewers while reporting.[16] Pool has also let his viewers direct him on where to shoot footage.[17] He modified a toy remote-controlled Parrot AR.Drone for aerial surveillance and modified software for live streaming into a system called DroneStream.[7][18][19]
Pool uses new technologies for coverage of events. In 2013, he reported on the Gezi Park protests in Istanbul with Google Glass.[20][11]
Pool's use of livestreaming video and aerial drones during Occupy Wall Street protests prompted an article in The Guardian about excessive surveillance.[19] He has often been threatened for filming. In January 2012 he was physically accosted by a masked assailant.[21][22] Pool's video taken during the protests was instrumental evidence in the acquittal of photographer Alexander Arbuckle, who had been arrested by the NYPD. The video showed that the arresting officer lied under oath, though no charges were filed.[23]
While covering the NONATO protests at the 2012 Chicago summit, Pool, along with four others, was pulled over by a dozen Chicago police officers in unmarked vehicles. The group was removed from the vehicle at gunpoint, interrogated and searched. The official reason given by police was that the vehicle the team had been in matched a description. The group was released after approximately 10 minutes.[24]
In February 2017, Pool travelled to Sweden to investigate media reports of "no-go zones" and problems with refugees in the country. He did this independently of a later challenge from Infowars writer Paul Joseph Watson, who offered to pay for travel costs and accommodation for any reporter "to stay in crime ridden migrant suburbs of Malmö."[25][26] Swedish police disputed Pool's report that police had escorted him out, saying their shared routes were coincidental while agreeing that they had advised Pool to leave the Rinkeby area.[27]
Pool was nominated as a Time 100 personality in 2012.[28] The following year he received a Shorty Award in the "Best Journalist in Social Media" category.[29]
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