Your Thoughts on Mass Media

We see so many images of anger, hatred, victimization, and violence

on TV and print media. Yet, there are kind deeds everywhere. The

picture here will not make it to any pages of a magazine for it does

not evoke strong feelings among the viewers as an image of a crack

addict slumped over a chair in a slum apartment would.

 

I am not knocking those types of pictures but, it is refreshing to

now and then see images of everyday, normal, human interactions.

This picture is not techincally perfect by any means. Lighting was

low (i.e. high iso) and no tripod was used. But, I like the way the

body language and the facial expression of the man with the

cigarette lighter. Service with a smile. Your thoughts appreciated.<div></div>

You've hit upon one of the reasons some of us do street

photography. As for the picture, not bad composition, but the

gesture you describe would have been better communicated if

you were up closer.

Sonny,

 

Love the image.

 

I have spent 20 years working in daily newspapers, radio, television (CNBC, Sky, BBC) and news agencies.

 

Gradually, news has been replaced by features and issue-based stories. The trouble with issue-based news, as practised by the BBC today, is that it takes sides. It decides who is right or wrong and assumes the viewer doesn't have the ability to judge for him or her self.

 

Of the outlets listed above, only the news agency (Reuters in my case) still consistently produces a stream of funny, sad, humane stories about ordinary people - presumably because there still are some newspapers out there that publish them.

 

The dumping of news in favour of issues is very dangerous. It assumes that the news organisation has chosen the right side, if there is such a thing. I don't like news organisations deciding what is right or wrong for the same reason I don't like governments deciding what industries to champion and which to close. They get it wrong more often than they get it right, because the real world has too many variables to slot into right or wrong.

 

I worry whether the BBC, in the 1930s, would have sided with the lone voice, Winston Churchill, or the majority of British politicians.

 

I think the media should stick to doing what it says on the box... and that means news. Your image is in that tradition: it's simple and it conveys a message of humanity without any intent to preach.

"If it bleeds it leads".

 

This all may be a moot point and much has been written. The days of "anchor men" dominating the information flow are over. Every man woman and child in the US has a multitude of information sources and more and more they are trusting (for good and documented reasons) the mass media less and less.

 

Several years ago the journalism schools started teaching the concept of "best outcome". That means that the primary purpose of a news story went from fully informing the public to shapeing society for the overall good.

 

When that happend, "reporters" became "journalists" and a vacuum opened up for someone to supply facts, not opinions.

 

This caused the explosion of information sources that we have today.

Sonny,

 

Like the image. It needs to be larger to be appriciated.

 

I have thoughts on the media. I'll save them for later. It is 4:30 a.m. I need to go back to bed....

I like the ambiguity the distance between subject and camera generates. Without the opening

paragraph, this could be interpreted as either a benevolent or malevolent image.

not so Peter, the news is not strictly business -- I think that's true anywhere in the world. Here in the States, the public access network TV has an obligation to serve me NEWS, not to spread fear and sensastionalism. It is their professional obligation to serve the public -- and imbalancing the truth, to put it gently, is not in public service. The day to keep the public networks accountable to this standard has yet to come. But what you just wrote is basically a copycat of the mainstream media cynicism -- the public,in your opinion, is a bunch of blood thirsty psychopaths. I witnessed too many acts of random kindness to believe it.

 

To Sonny: what you said about your photograph you should have said with your photograph. you missed a great moment.

To Mark Gay: Baldwin and then Chamberlain and their ilk DID get the BBC to ignore Churchill in the '30s, read Manchester's biography of the savior of Western Civilization

 

As far as "the media" in general, my own little opinion is that their job is to try to point out to the public what's broken, and can stand some attention: what's working right probably needs to be kept secret so the politicians can't find it and "improve" it

I do not trust TV news: a long service during a typical TV news show lasts 1 or 2 minutes. Not enough to allow people to form their own idea about what's going on.

 

Newspapers, guys. Read. Read. Read. Read.

I agree with most of you that I do not trust news and generally I watch tv once a month or something. Actually for a lot of years I did not have one. But, Peter, although you are correct to be cynical I think that Maria's opinion serves better society. This means that being cynical does not serve a change for the better. It is true what Maria says, that national networks have the obligation to serve the public. If all the people that we do not like the news had the opinion that this thing has to change maybe things would be better. Every country and population has the tv that they deserve. But on the other hand a national tv network has the obligation not to lower but increase the standards. According to me, people (me included) we are 80% animals and 20%humans. If the news target my animal side they will make me more animal, if they target my human side they will make me more human. Now it is correct for a business to target the 80 and not the 20%...... but it is not correct for me.

Sonny, I forgot to write it before, I like your picture and I thing that it would help a lot if you could submit it in a bigger size.

maria: a great thought and hope but our current NEWS still sucks. and soon the congress is going to end funding for PBS and NPR. more and more, the news is business, i am afraid. sad but true.

Maybe at a point in time, without the public's awareness, news has become entertainment, similiar to the current "reality shows." I believe news is relatively cheap to make, you will never run out of content, provided that you can consider anything and everything news. More importantly, there is a very wide audience that crosses demographics, color, status, education, etc...

 

Furthermore, in response to the idea of news should only be reporting unbiased facts, I think there is an inherent problem. This problem stems from putting eye-witnesses and "actors" in front of a camera. As an example, whenever you see a politician on TV, the politician is glamorized with makeup and his/her speech or response to questions are known in advanced and scripted. Therefore, news has become a medium to promote an agenda, or, to shape public opinion. Print media is more or less the same way, with politicians' PR people selecting photographic angles, background, etc...

 

Someone wrote correctly that news is business. Big business. Most news channels and networks (if not all) are owned by big businesses, with shareholders. Here in Los Angeles, news is running around the clock. Turn on your TV, and its on at 5am, 8am, 10am, 12pm, 2pm, 4pm, 6pm, 10pm, etc...all repeating the same news

 

For those living outside of Los Angeles, or the United States, does the news run around the clock?

 

Also, here is a bigger picture.

News and business: I fully agree that mainstream news in the US is driven by what sells - but the customer's the advertiser; the reader/viewer/listener is just the primary product sold.<br>What's more interesting is to try to figure out how business plays its markets. In the US, it's hard to find a more pro-neocon supporter than Rupert Murdoch's FOX News. But in the UK, it was Murdoch's Sunday Times which has been breaking and pushing the Downing Street memos. What we get here in the US reflects the market - you can get a clear idea of what the advertisers think sells even by looking at the TRP here on PN - and it's not a rounded view of reality.<br>I agree with Maria that most people are innately good - maybe we want to hear about the outrageous because it offends against what we know is right, ... but even before mass media, people attended public executions - anyone ever see that photo documentary about lynchings in the US in the late 19th / early 20th centuries? They were picnic events.<br>Sonny - I can't speak for anyone else, but I guess what I want from the news is triage. It's sweet that someone found their lost dog, but right now what I want more than anything is for the news to get the American electorate to wake up so they can rein in their empire - and if that means showing bleeding kids in Iraq from another 500lb "precision" bomb, so be it.

I wasn't commenting on the status quo, I was commenting on the principle. Don't forget that <b>public networks are under obligation to serve the public</b>. It's not my utopian idealism -- that's in the manual of their business operating. The problem is nobody holds them accountable -- you can return an unwanted merchandise but you can't return news. Is there a legal instrument to hold them up to their standards? Willing misrepresentation is a criminal offense if I remember correctly.

<p> When Walter Cronkite said Vietnam is a lost cause, President Johnoson observed that if he lost Cronkite he lost middle America. When NBC's Peter Arnett said the same, he got fired. When Heraldo Rivera made up a heroic story from Iraq he got a job with Fox. The times, the are a-changin'

Maria - all over the air media is licensed in the US to serve the public - it's public airways. And maybe you've missed the news (too much or too little NPR) your tax dollars are going to keep flowing to "public broadcasting." They still don't like the idea of accountability though.

The mass media is not showing or doing actual news. It is focused on issues. It is not objective bur absolutely and totally subjective.

We the audience get a stream of body counts, begun in Vietnam on a daily basis about everything, not only Iraq! I no longer watch the news.. the internet's sites by different photojournalists is more than a enough for me!

The modern media and even the arts is governed by the capitalist machine. I an in complete opposition to communism, fascism or nazism but it beginning to stink the same with capitalism.

Lack of freedom, choices or liberty all in the name of " Anti- terrorism" under the guise of security.

Don't have time now for expositive thought, but I agree with Maria completely about the principal, unfortunately in this country the news has been perverted for many reasons, acch its just a huge topic sorry.