The New Yellow Star
3 years ago
Tuesday, December 2, 2008
A Summary of BBC, AP and NYT Coverage of Mumbai
Youth, disturbed by US aggression in the Middle East and Central Asia, protested attacks on the Muslim faith in Mumbai last week. Some western travelers, many of whom traveled there to exploit the conditions of poverty, created by the largest democracy in the world, including US and British citizens as well as citizens of Israel, were inadvertently harmed by the series of protests, . It is feared that the government of India may have harmed the youth, in an overreaction to their protest. International aid organizations, the Pakistani government and the United Nations are demanding to know the condition of the young men seen carrying the symbols of struggle and resistance in various videos released late last week and over the weekend. Unnamed sources assure us that any civilian casualties were random and most likely due to Indian government ineptness.
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5 comments:
Maybe mine is an over simplistic view of things, but I've often wondered, with the advent of sites like YouTube and the "I-report" type of video-citizen journalism that media outlets are fond of pushing, has this made for better journalism? or simply for quicker event publication and therefore lack of fair editorial processing of said news...
Going along with what Truth said, I think that citizen journalism will eventually lead to better information (if free speech is protected) but the technology is so New that many go with the Speed angle vs. verifying information or thinking about the consequences of Rushing a story....
So what is journalism? If it simply a video of an event, with perhaps no contextual references? I think the "YouTube" journalistic style is what we in the college football ranks call "style points" because it has little to do with reporting, and everything to do with speed and content that grabs attention.
It began, in part, with the Rodney King video, a video that started after the incident and did not place the entire event in context. Several of the police officers went above ehat was required, without doubt. The point is that if I had been the first officer out of the car I would have put a round through his forehead and it would never have been an issue.
You don't understand that? That is because you never saw the part of the incident where massive Rodney King, under the influence of narcotics, charged the first police officer he came upon - A petite female. Had I been her, I would have dropped him before he reached the hood of my car.
Not trying to stir controversy about race and police brutality...it is a real example of how these videos don't show the entire story.
So I don't even consider it journalism. To me, journalism is presenting the historical background of an event, placing the event in context, and then allowing the viewer/reader to draw their own conclusions, based on the presentation of facts.
Good points all around, ...
In college, while studying Journalism (don't laugh Robert, I've had SOME schooling...) I read on how Marshall McCluhan wrote "The medium is the message". It took me decades to begin to comprehend both the ambiguity of this as well as its endless truth.
The overlapping definitions of "news", "journalism", "reporting" and probably things like "Op Eds" etc. lead me to believe that they are interchangeable to the reader,... at least to the general reader/viewer who invests but 15 minutes of his day to the evening news and has no motive or time to delve deeper into a story of his or her interest.
I agree with Biased Gird (pleased to meet you!), the opening up of reporting events from citizens will be a good thing in that (hopefully) it makes the professionals double-check their facts, calibrate their editorializing, and decide if it is going to be presented as fact or opinion.
Lastly, news can never be placed in context. Context is a subjective thing and what is contextual to the Goose, is selective factoid to the Gander.
I think that you need to place video's that come from Youtube, in their proper places. I think they are helpful to a point. With the extreme bias of the MSM, it helps that there are alternative viewpoints out there, even if they are by amateurs with a camera and a little free time. I agree with Robert though, that you can't put your full trust in them because they only show some of the story and they have the potential to slant a certain way too.
I question the thinking process of the protesters in Mumbai. After such a horrific attack from Muslims, the government is certainly in protect mode in their goal of keeping everyone safe and rightly so.
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