Can pictures tell a thousand words?

The profession of photojournalism – an investigation into objectivity, principles and ethics

 

 

Jabaliya Refugee Camp, Ahmed Jadallah (Rueters)

In 2004 Ahmed Jadallah won the World Press Photo of the Year Award for his image of refugees in the Gaza Strip. The picture was taken in March 2003 in the aftermath of an Isreali tank attack in Jabalya refugee camp. At the time Jadallah and his group had been hit by a bomb. Jadallah describes the incident stating “It’s really hard, you know, to see people dying in front of you and I was feeling that I was also dying.” (cited in Leith, 2004, p. 200) He then describes a big hole opening up in the ground and he felt he was falling. After waking up he realised he too was injured. “My legs had been broken, I thought I was dying, and I couldn’t move but I did my job and I took pictures of the dead people beside me.” (cited in Leith, 2004, p. 201) Ahmed Jadallah’s picture captures the horrific scene, the brutal reality, the chaos and the sad truth of death and conflict. Jadallah claims there were no gunmen in the vicinity when they were attacked, only civilians. Ahmed Jadallah’s story, like many other photojournalists, allow us to see the need for photojournalism as a powerful voice within society as well as the danger of the profession and ethical and moral issues involved. “For me I don’t have any power, only the hope that there is change and only the ability to try my best as a journalist, as a photographer to show what is going on.” (cited in Leith, 2004, p. 203)Jadallah’s humble words poignantly reflect the essential role of photojournalism – to inform and educate the world.

“I’ll take some sport mixed with a little fashion and a side order of politics…”

When I read the paper I skim the front page, skip the business and economics, sometimes dabble into a little world news, pour over the arts and entertainment, adore the beautiful pictures of different countries in the travel section, love reading an inticing feature and gaze at the weather and my stars. Now I can have my very own personalised paper with all my favourite bits delievered to my door by 8am – well that’s if I lived in Germany.

Here’s the proof:

German firm offers Europe’s first ‘personalised paper’

(AFP) – 1 day ago

 BERLIN — Two young German entrepreneurs presented what they described as a Europe-wide first on Tuesday: a newspaper tailored to readers’ individual wishes and delivered to their door before 8:00 am.

Customers of the paper choose what topics they want to read about — be it sport, politics, fashion or any from a wide choice — and receive news only on their chosen subjects collected together and delivered like any other paper.

Articles are pulled together from major German papers such as Handelsblatt, Bild and Tagesspiegel, foreign titles such as the International Herald Tribune or the New York Times, as well as major blogs and Internet news sources.

The newspaper, called “niiu” will carry articles in both English and German and is aimed primarily at students, explained founders Hendrik Tiedemann, 27, and Wanja Soeren Oberhof, 23.

Students would pay 1.20 euros (1.79 dollars) for their daily news fix whereas others would be expected to stump up 1.80 euros. Bild costs 0.60 euros, and the Tagesspiegel 0.95 euros in Berlin.

Unveiling the concept at a news conference on Tuesday, the entrepreneurs acknowledged that founding a new paper when traditional media are suffering from competition online was a risky venture.

However, they said that young people are tired of trawling the Internet for news and would pay for the personalised, tailored service that niiu would offer.

“Our feedback has shown that people prefer to read from paper,” said Oberhof.

Oberhof and Tiedemann aim to have 5,000 clients in the next six months in Berlin before extending the concept throughout the whole of Germany.

In addition, they said they hoped to make money from advertisers “because they can do very targeted advertising and reach exactly the readers they want.”

The first editions will be rolling off the presses on November 16, they said, and will be available from Monday to Saturday.

Eventually, clients will also be able to choose the length of the paper delivered — for example, eight pages on a busy Monday but 60 pages on a Friday when there is more time to read.

Initially, the paper will be 16 pages.

Everyone’s a journalist

So lets delve into user-generated content. Citizen journalism is about the people, it’s a new media, so how much impact has it really had? How are news companies engaging and using citizens as journalists? What are the effects of this? And why is it such a growing trend? This Digital Media TV episode looks at these questions … enjoy!

Don’t be a twit

Suzanne Mostyn wrote a powerful article in The Weekend  Australian, on September 12-13, about narcolepsy and the misreprestation of it in the media. The story is set around a tweet Mia Freeman posted with a link to a YouTube video with the words “Made me laugh. Rusty the narcoleptic dog.” 

The clip Freeman posted is of a dashshund running around on grass before, suddenly, inexplicably, collapsing in a heap, asleep. Mostyn raises the question; now imagine that it’s your child. Your child running, playing and – suddenly, without warning – collapsing in a heap, unable to stay upright or alert. Mostyn’s son suffers from narcolepsy and she didn’t find this clip funny at all.

She discovered that the footage was actually part of an instructional video shot for scientific purposes that’s been purloined for use as a punchline on YouTube. The words at the start of the clip say “Sleep disorders. Unit 3: states of consciousness”, while the accompanying commentary says “This dachshund, Rusty, suffers from narcolepsy, a condition that causes him to suddenly fall asleep when he’s trying to do ther things. Little is known about the cause of narcolepsy, except that it can be inherited. It affects humans and animals alike.” Here we can see how often the internet as well as viewers of the internet can take things out of content and something that is a sensative and important issue can be turned into humour by ignorant others. As Mostyn says “Freedman’s tweet ‘Made me laugh’ should have prompted a ‘made me sad’ or better yet – ‘made me think’ or ‘made me investigate’.”

I think it’s a lesson for people to truely understand what information they recieve and to be careful what they say. This can be said for the whole of the media, people with highly respected positions must have the sense to realise what they are saying will have an impact on their viewers, listeners or readers. Journalists and public figures, while they can voice their freedom of speech, must also have a greater social responsiblity that doesn’t create a narrow minded society. We can see the abuse of this power in Kyle Sandilands’s contoversal comments made about Magda Szubanski’s recent 25kg weight loss on his 2DAYFM breakfast show, Sandilands said she would only be skinny if she was put in a concentration camp.

I think Mostyn’s words “think before you tweet . When you don’t you are rendered nothing more than a twit” should apply to the whole of the media.

Tweet this, Mia; the misfortune of others isn’t entertainment – http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,26056147-7583,00.html

Kyle’s big mouth in nasty relapse- http://www.watoday.com.au/entertainment/kyles-big-mouth-in-nasty-relapse-20090909-fgfx.html