Saturday, February 7, 2004
Roger L. Simon has a picture that speaks volumes about the media and how we receive our view of the world. It brings to mind the importance of groups like CAMERA and Honest Reporting and HR's film, Relentless.
A commenter on Roger's blog points to this Jonah Goldberg article on the famous picture of General Nguyen Ngoc Loan shooting a man. Goldberg:
The picture that Adams took, the picture that CNN thinks is such an atrocious and ignoble deed, ruined Loan's life. More to the point, it didn't expand on "our right to know." It didn't answer questions, or give us the story. It deceived. It gave no context. It confirmed the biases of the anti-war journalists, and they used it to further their agenda...
And that's just it. Everyone has an angle. It is the rare bird of a journalist who doesn't have an ax to grind, or a conclusion they're trying, even subconsciously, to lead you to. The trouble is, the vast majority of people, even those who should know better, never really consider that, or they're only too willing to adopt the point of view of their information provider for reasons of ease, or belonging, or naivete (Hey, the Charter of the BBC says it must be impartial, therefore...it must be impartial, right?) or some other reason, good or not.
Roger says even blogs are suspect, and that's very, very true, but we are, as he implies, also responsible for getting the other angle out in front of people's eyes.
Now go have a look at one of those other angles over at Roger's.
