Pictures Worth 1000 Expletives I’ve taken a break to do some real work (not long after an old pal cracked, “So how’s Reporters Without Paychecks doing?”) but… Gaza, like Syria and Ukraine environs, is a fuse leading to enough powder to tilt the world on its axis. Anti-Semitism is one thing. For a live-action demo, try strolling through the Paris banlieue in a yarmulke. Or for that matter, a Yankees cap. But that is just part of it. It doesn’t matter who, by anyone’s belief, is “right” or “wrong.” Human events turn on realities perceived by people involved. Outsiders only make things worse when they don’t understand a situation before making judgments. Yet way too many outsiders leap to conclusions based on a few nanoseconds of gut reaction. I started poking around when someone sent me a link to a photo of a Gaza victim. The same picture appeared elsewhere to illustrate another conflict entirely. It turns out Google is full of that sort of shit. Photos and video, now more crucial than ever, are dead easy to fake or to use as “evidence” to support twisted analysis. And it is also easy for a well-meaning journalist to make a mistake. For instance: Breitbart ran a big black headline: BBC JOURNO SPREADS PHOTO OF SYRIAN CHILD DEPICTED AS GAZA VICTIM. As Breitbart said in the second paragraph, a Palestinian journalist posted the picture. A BBC reporter retweeted it but then realized he was had, and he corrected it with an apology. Nonetheless, Breitbart readers foamed at the mouth: “BBC is the commie propaganda tool - do not listen to this lying dogs (sic) (and sick)” “BBC should take an automatic weapon to their entire news staff....then turn the weapon on themselves.” And, of course, the usual moronic generality: “Someone once said that the truth was the first victim of war. The modern media actually seems to target the truth for death.” The antidote to this is “the modern media.” The BBC, for example. And take a look at the attached. Tyler Hicks not only shows us what is happening in Gaza, but he also explains what he sees and how he goes about relaying that to us so that we can judge reality for ourselves. Should we really quibble over whether pros like him deserve a living wage and a little expense money? If you’re still reading this, you hardly need my morality lecture. But this is a fight we’ve all got to join. In whatever way possible, we need to help normal people understand why real reporting is essential to just about anything that matters.
Posted on: Sun, 27 Jul 2014 16:00:15 +0000
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