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Re: [OM] Re: [OT] Space shuttle media

Subject: Re: [OM] Re: [OT] Space shuttle media
From: Gregg Iverson <giverson@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 21:41:10 -0500
I have been reading with interest the various posts on this topic. I have leaned one way then the other as both sides have presented reasonable arguments. Now I am square in the middle. If it wasn't for the graphic and unsettling photographs of Vietnam for instance, the public would probably have allowed things to continue status quo. It is only as an image gets through the viewers callous that we evoke the strong emotion we, as photographers, want the viewer to have. That is what photojournalism is about.

Yet, I do not for one minute believe the media has the right to poke a lens or microphone in the face of a grieving or hurting individual to ask how they feel. That reporter deserves to be rebuffed in the strongest way. I believe it is a mixture of insensitivity and laziness that causes this to happen. Insensitivity because all that matters is the rating the piece earns. Lazyness because most of today's media are too much in a hurry to do the job right.

But this thread has covered government style cover-ups too. I believe many citizens are mature enough to hear the facts and make the right decision. That may be the problem! I, for one, am not sure the government - no matter which country - is really concerned with what is right. If they are to get us to follow along with what they decree, they need us to believe that what they are doing is the right thing to do. Facts and truth have little place in their world. Power corrupts, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.

Gregg


Jay wrote:

The answer is responsibility...which the media seem to have forgotten even
exists as a concept. We, as photographers, have a duty to not only our
viewers, but our subjects as well. What is gained by showing the face of an
injured accident victim, or a crying mother looking at her baby on an
ambulance stretcher? This is the photographic equivalent of asking that same
mother "How do you feel right now?" DAMMIT, HOW IS SHE SUPPOSED TO FEEL??!!

As you might guess, I feel pretty strongly over this issue. I'm not going to
apologize for it, either; I spent too many years of my life working to help
people in those situations, as a volunteer, to accept that the media has a
larger duty to hurt them worse in the name of "freedom of the press".


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