My rant on Katrina coverage, partically in newsprint
The debate that is unraveling across monitors, pages and television screens around America has been a long time coming. So rarely do we in print like to push these issues to the front, if it is given space at all. Why, because a fire storm almost always ensues.
The media, all outlets, tend to put blinders on and worry about the now. The big story today, the feature next week, the audience we seem to be growing further and further apart from.
I hope it is not a newsroom cultural item.
I find that environment most intoxicating with knowledge, discourse and deviating opinions. Sure people's opinions clash, but that is the point. In that environment one cannot shy away from some hard truths.
But how do report racism that doesn't involve hate as much as fear? Or poverty that is so ingrained into society that money is no answer?
Hard questions that not only involve hugely difficult solutions that will take hours, or books to explain, but involves multiple deeply difficult questions first.
I have no answers, and I would hope no 50 people would.
That is why the newsromm just keeps on keeping on. Blinders intact, it deals with class and race in manageable chunks that can be attributed to facts, not ideals. Maybe my generation will be able keep a head up for these slow growing stories that are always below the surface. And align that photographs and copy.
A panhandler asks for cash, but does anybody truly understand the way that person lives. Maybe a life such as that can only be experienced, not looked upon with empathy.
It is horrid that the situation has raised the eyebrows of editors and readers. Race and class have not had headline space like this in my time. But as we speak the events are being pigeon-holed: race or class? Black or white? Have or have not?
Just like politics: the more complex the issue, the more the message gets muddled. Maybe its a bit of every single issue rolled into to one. There is no peace in that answer though, and that is tough question for a civil society to ask itself. And you know what? That is damn hard to put into a "lead" and a "nut-graph", find sources that will talk on record and call a photo for.
Still, it needs to be asked. I just hope the media doesn't answer it for me, it's not there job..
ZA
The media, all outlets, tend to put blinders on and worry about the now. The big story today, the feature next week, the audience we seem to be growing further and further apart from.
I hope it is not a newsroom cultural item.
I find that environment most intoxicating with knowledge, discourse and deviating opinions. Sure people's opinions clash, but that is the point. In that environment one cannot shy away from some hard truths.
But how do report racism that doesn't involve hate as much as fear? Or poverty that is so ingrained into society that money is no answer?
Hard questions that not only involve hugely difficult solutions that will take hours, or books to explain, but involves multiple deeply difficult questions first.
I have no answers, and I would hope no 50 people would.
That is why the newsromm just keeps on keeping on. Blinders intact, it deals with class and race in manageable chunks that can be attributed to facts, not ideals. Maybe my generation will be able keep a head up for these slow growing stories that are always below the surface. And align that photographs and copy.
A panhandler asks for cash, but does anybody truly understand the way that person lives. Maybe a life such as that can only be experienced, not looked upon with empathy.
It is horrid that the situation has raised the eyebrows of editors and readers. Race and class have not had headline space like this in my time. But as we speak the events are being pigeon-holed: race or class? Black or white? Have or have not?
Just like politics: the more complex the issue, the more the message gets muddled. Maybe its a bit of every single issue rolled into to one. There is no peace in that answer though, and that is tough question for a civil society to ask itself. And you know what? That is damn hard to put into a "lead" and a "nut-graph", find sources that will talk on record and call a photo for.
Still, it needs to be asked. I just hope the media doesn't answer it for me, it's not there job..
ZA
No comments:
Post a Comment