[extropy-chat] re: the challenges of photojournalism

[Amara Graps]

me:
>>  There was a major story in the blog sphere recently when Kevin Sites
>>  filmed the killing of a man in a Falluja mosque who was injured and
>>  seemed to be no threat to the marines that entered and to the marine
>>  who killed him.

Hal Finney:
>The problem with this kind of story is that we don't have all of the
>information necessary to know how to put it into context.

Like any information source, one must decide whether the source is
trustworthy or not. Ideally, yes, we would like to have had more
cameras on that particular scene to give us all of the perspectives.
Lacking that, we have the source that we have. It's up to each of us
to decide what to trust. If you read Kevin Sites' full letter to the
Marines,

http://www.kevinsites.net/2004_11_21_archive.html#110107420331292115

he was trying very hard to see the situation from different
perspectives, including from the Marine's view. At the end, he had to
say what his conscience was telling him. I think that it took alot of
courage to speak out his mind. I respect what he did, alot.

In order to report data ('truths'), it's important to be aware of our
own filters and be open to whatever new evidence comes to light. Many
years ago another photojournalist named Saira Shah found herself
breaking her very old stereotypes of people dear to her, the
mujahadin, in order to report particular events  for her work at a
British television station. Her family background was an exiled
Afghan growing up in England, so she didn't know an Afghanistan beyond
the stories of her father until she went there as a young adult (early
20s). Her early view of the mujahadin was wrapped in a romantic
envelope. The event that shattered her romantic wrapping paper was
evidence that a group of mujahadin had sold US-supplied Stinger
missles to Iran. It was a huge story and she knew it, and because her
data was solid, she had to write the story. From that moment, her life
in Peshawar was orders of magnitude more difficult and she eventually
left, but it was a turning point for her to see Afghanistan in a more
realistic light.

These are the kind of courageous people that I would trust to be my
eyes to see particular events in the absence of more cameras.

My point in my previous note was a bit different- it was how film
can show the extremes of our human lives- at one end something that
shames us, and at the other end, a reminder of our dreams and heroic
efforts. Sites says:

"In war, as in life, there are plenty of opportunities to see the full
spectrum of good and evil that people are capable of. As journalists,
it is our job is to report both -- though neither may be fully
representative of those people on whom we're reporting. For example,
acts of selfless heroism are likely to be as unique to a group as the
darker deeds. But our coverage of these unique events, combined with
the larger perspective - will allow the truth of that situation, in
all of its complexities, to begin to emerge. That doesn't make the
decision to report events like this one any easier. It has, for me,
led to an agonizing struggle -- the proverbial long, dark night of the
soul."

Both ends of the spectrum are important to know the full range. My
preference, though, is the heroic end of the spectrum because it
highlights what humans are capable of, and spurs us forward into
better/greater activities.

Amara

-- 

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Amara Graps, PhD          email: amara at amara.com
Computational Physics     vita:  ftp://ftp.amara.com/pub/resume.txt
Multiplex Answers         URL:   http://www.amara.com/
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"It's not the pace of life I mind. It's the sudden stop at the end."
--Calvin