Inanimate News Day
June 10th 2008 09:19
"The bombers," the news reporter told me, "stopped for petrol. Their eery images on this CCTV footage show them behaving (pause for dramatic effect) as if nothing is wrong."
I like to imagine a time when journalism was held to a higher standard. I don't know if such a time existed, but I like to look back at it wistfully. The good old days, I've noticed, are usually exactly the same as our current days, only without the benefit of nostalgia-propelled distance. It is therefore essential, even after such a realisation has been reached, to treat the distorted, rose-coloured memories as if they are fact.
And so, I look back at what I shall call The Golden Age of Journalism, which occurred in... prrrfft... I don't know, let's say the 1950s. I just saw Good Night and Good Luck again, and so the period that had Murrow/Strathairn seems as good a time as any. Yes, the 1950s, when news was reported because a thing was actually happening. These days, of course, news is reported because there's some ace footage that someone's taken on their mobile phone. How many stories have you seen that begin with "It's not every day that a gust of wind can uproot a tree, but...". (If your answer is "not many" or "none", then begone with you. Your unscripted responses have no place in my carefully-constructed rhetoric.) A tree falling over is not news, but footage of a tree uprooting is exciting, and so we watch it without much question.
The quality of journalism -- and it should be clear by now that I'm referring to TV news bulletins, not newspapers or radio or bloggers or town criers -- comes even further into question when you remember that the six o'clock news is going to go for half an hour no matter how much or how little news there is. The details given to a story, and therefore the weight it is assigned, is incumbent upon how long the report itself is, but its length is only ever determined by how many seconds the news director has available before the next c-break.
But it all comes down to the footage, and so when someone uncovered security camera footage of suicide bombers filling up their car mere hours before they set off their explosions, it got an awful lot of screen time. There was nothing new to report, of course. This petrol station revelation didn't have any actual impact, which is why the journalist tried to assign it some. "Look at the calmness they portray as they put fuel into their automobile. Just think of what this now tells us about the mind of a suicide bomber!"
Yes, thank you, News Reporter. The image I had in my mind was of frocked jihadists covered in TNT screaming at the top of their lungs as they pumped petrol into their fuel tank. Now, thanks to you, I'll know that the next time I see someone of Middle Eastern appearance filling up at a service station, their placid demeanour will betray their true explosive intent. What an insight!
What were they expecting? Does the surprise come from the fact that these terrorists -- with whom we have absolutely nothing in common with -- perform tasks as normal and mundane as the rest of us? Were we originally supposed to assume that their vehicles ran on hatred of infidels?
If the reporter had been up front about the whole thing and said "They filled their car in the exact manner that any reasonably intelligent person would assume", then we'd all suddenly become aware of the fact that there is no reason to show this footage outside of the fact that they have it, hence the obfuscating subterfuge passing as journalism.
So, as I watched this report, delivered to me by a highly-respected international news agency, I realised that there was something to be surprised about, after all. For, you see, the CCTV footage was so poor, and the image quality so pixilated, that in order to correctly identify behaviour that was anything out of the ordinary, the men would need to be running around the car waving their hands over their heads. Only these broad gestures could possibly be noticed by what can only be described as the most useless security camera in the world. That said, the journalist's ability to gain proper insight into these men by way of about sixteen grey squares is, in itself, impressive, and would be worthy of a news story itself.
...depending, of course, upon what else had happened that day.
I like to imagine a time when journalism was held to a higher standard. I don't know if such a time existed, but I like to look back at it wistfully. The good old days, I've noticed, are usually exactly the same as our current days, only without the benefit of nostalgia-propelled distance. It is therefore essential, even after such a realisation has been reached, to treat the distorted, rose-coloured memories as if they are fact.
And so, I look back at what I shall call The Golden Age of Journalism, which occurred in... prrrfft... I don't know, let's say the 1950s. I just saw Good Night and Good Luck again, and so the period that had Murrow/Strathairn seems as good a time as any. Yes, the 1950s, when news was reported because a thing was actually happening. These days, of course, news is reported because there's some ace footage that someone's taken on their mobile phone. How many stories have you seen that begin with "It's not every day that a gust of wind can uproot a tree, but...". (If your answer is "not many" or "none", then begone with you. Your unscripted responses have no place in my carefully-constructed rhetoric.) A tree falling over is not news, but footage of a tree uprooting is exciting, and so we watch it without much question.
The quality of journalism -- and it should be clear by now that I'm referring to TV news bulletins, not newspapers or radio or bloggers or town criers -- comes even further into question when you remember that the six o'clock news is going to go for half an hour no matter how much or how little news there is. The details given to a story, and therefore the weight it is assigned, is incumbent upon how long the report itself is, but its length is only ever determined by how many seconds the news director has available before the next c-break.
But it all comes down to the footage, and so when someone uncovered security camera footage of suicide bombers filling up their car mere hours before they set off their explosions, it got an awful lot of screen time. There was nothing new to report, of course. This petrol station revelation didn't have any actual impact, which is why the journalist tried to assign it some. "Look at the calmness they portray as they put fuel into their automobile. Just think of what this now tells us about the mind of a suicide bomber!"
Yes, thank you, News Reporter. The image I had in my mind was of frocked jihadists covered in TNT screaming at the top of their lungs as they pumped petrol into their fuel tank. Now, thanks to you, I'll know that the next time I see someone of Middle Eastern appearance filling up at a service station, their placid demeanour will betray their true explosive intent. What an insight!
What were they expecting? Does the surprise come from the fact that these terrorists -- with whom we have absolutely nothing in common with -- perform tasks as normal and mundane as the rest of us? Were we originally supposed to assume that their vehicles ran on hatred of infidels?
If the reporter had been up front about the whole thing and said "They filled their car in the exact manner that any reasonably intelligent person would assume", then we'd all suddenly become aware of the fact that there is no reason to show this footage outside of the fact that they have it, hence the obfuscating subterfuge passing as journalism.
So, as I watched this report, delivered to me by a highly-respected international news agency, I realised that there was something to be surprised about, after all. For, you see, the CCTV footage was so poor, and the image quality so pixilated, that in order to correctly identify behaviour that was anything out of the ordinary, the men would need to be running around the car waving their hands over their heads. Only these broad gestures could possibly be noticed by what can only be described as the most useless security camera in the world. That said, the journalist's ability to gain proper insight into these men by way of about sixteen grey squares is, in itself, impressive, and would be worthy of a news story itself.
...depending, of course, upon what else had happened that day.
| 69 |
| Vote |
Shared on
Subscribe to this blog
Comment by Paul Nelson
This need to seize on any infinitesimal detail or barely visible surreptitiously recorded footage -- and then play it over, and over and over again -- to pad out your 24 hour "Where News Happens" channel is directly responsible for the decline of the news we get. It's like any industry where there's proliferation and demand outranks supply... the quality falls off dramatically.
Not to mention the fact that all these channels are head-to-head vying for the attention of the average cable-abled punter with 78 channels at their disposal, thus the Bruckheimerisation of news begins, and the news item is pumped up with dramatic licence. The world is far more complicated than that, but when billions of cable subscription, advertising and news rights dollars are on the line, what do a few details about people we don't know and never going to meet really matter, right?
P
Comment by Lee Zachariah
Procrasturbating
Sadly, you are correct Paul, as the story I mentioned did actually come from one of these places. Hence, my news is sourced directly from The Onion and Conan monologues.