One of the oddest things about journalism is highlighted in todays news . The main premiss in journalism is we report what people say . The fact that pictures are evidence is often lost. We seek witnesses to say the words that describe news worthy situations . We wait for news releases from official sources .
I have seen reporters witness news but insist on finding someone to quote .
An example of this oddity is on the news today where the pictures are “information” but no one notices .
South African police open fire on a group of striking mine protestors . It is not known who fired first , but police opened fire killing 30 miners . The video clearly shows the entire confrontation but news organization are unable to recognize the video as evidence .One national news cast actually faded to black , apparently sparing Canadian viewers the actually shooting , then showed pictures of the aftermath.
By this morning CBC was showing most of the incident including a pic of one police officer moving toward the crowd , then quickly retreating as bullets hit the ground around him . The shooting of hundreds of rounds by police began .
Interestingly enough (right side of the shot) , one cop at the corner of his vehicle held his rifle down , and his arm tight to body. He seemed to be a leader , but bullets were flying from other police and his arm was in the field of fire . In the seconds of firing he raised his hand over his head in a fist , the universal signal to stop , as the shot widened a second leader appeared to be signalling the same gesture to another group of shooting police to the right . In those few seconds hundreds of rounds were off before the cease fire could be signalled .
Anyway if journalists just slowed down , and watched the video that they had , who shot first could likely be reported correctly . The attempt to cease fire was slowed because the police leader appeared to be in the line of fire in front of his unit. His fear of getting his elbow shot off appeared real .
Failing to analyze the (look at ) video , picture evidence , waiting for official word may cause rioting and further death . To a journalist , does it matter . Thirty people were shot by police , end of story . Over the years the biggest complaint is about context, context sometimes gets edited .THis may be a case of that , but maybe the visual sentences and visual verbs and visual details might fill in the gaps between the printed words .
Pictures are information and in this case may make things better , not worse . This is a rare but interesting criticism of the things we do everyday . By staying neutral we get better stories . Rarely is there so much too look at , I guess for those who are not used to seeing, there is a problem with this logic. Even to just raising the possibility , implies caring . Fading to black , wow never saw that before .
In the case of the Eddie Adams , 1968 Vietnamese police officer shooting VC in the head , the video was cut at the moment the bullet entered his head and then a split second later showed the fall . Another network showed the whole thing , not a pretty sight . The visual is so strong , or unusual it prevents the value of the image from being seen . The Kent State shooting is similar . Pictures , video are democratic , in these rare cases journalism is making a poor choice .
In the days that fallow the length of the video will shorten and the long list of political and special intrests will take over the story . All printed words .More riots , chaos and injury.
Topic: Very Odd Journalism- today in S Africa (Read 1366 times)