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[OM] Re: [OT] Space shuttle media

Subject: [OM] Re: [OT] Space shuttle media
From: "Lex Jenkins" <lexjenkins@xxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Thu, 01 Feb 2001 14:46:32
Well said, Dirk. Witnessing the unfortunate incidents, accidents and outrages of human existence is not the exclusive domain of the priveleged few: medical personnel, police and fire departments, etc. Sometimes I wish I had not seen some of the horrors I've witnessed in my work. Yet they have made me a more careful driver, more attentive to the needs of the less fortunate and more appreciative of life and my loved ones.

We must never succumb to the misguided notion that people must be protected from unpleasant information and images. For better or worse that is how we humans often learn the hardest lessons. While I too am often annoyed that reporters cannot think of better questions than "How do you feel about...?", I've never wished that a film, video or still image were less graphic or informative.

For example, when I learned the full story behind the well-known photo and film of the Saigon police chief shooting in the head a kneeling young man, suspected of being a Viet Cong collaborator or soldier who had just killed a Saigon policeman, I finally appreciated the overwhelming complexity of the Vietnam situation. Here was the essence of our own U.S. civil war, stripped of politics, economics and any irrelevant issues.

Lord, save us from censors who would spare us such hard lessons.

Lex
===

Date: Tue, 30 Jan 2001 09:27:06 -0500
From: Dirk Wright <wright@xxxxxxxxxxxx>


...I spent too many years of my life working to help people in those situations...to accept that the media has a larger duty to hurt them worse in the name of "freedom of the press".



It's not about that. It's about documenting the horrors of everyday life and...about changing society...

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