[First published in AM New York]
They are stunning, heartstopping images. And there are so many of them.
Every day seems to bring more. Scenes of the tsunami crashing down on unsuspecting coastal communities may not have been available to us all immediately, but thanks to the growing non-professional use of digital mini video-cameras – there they were, very soon afterward.
Then we could see the horror in out own homes -and we go on seeing it, from fresh angles and in more locations, every time that some new amateur footage surfaces.
Once again, the ever-growing role of the Internet has been ratcheted up more notches; now we quite evidently now have a whole new form of video distribution. We no longer have to wait for some TV network to transport a team to a far-flung news location and satellite back its recordings or its live coverage. In fact, news divisions and cable channels have been scurrying after, and taking images from, “vloggers”, the inevitable new coinage to describe bloggers who incorporate video into their pages.
One such vlog is Waveofdestruction.org, set up by Australian blogger Geoffrey Huntley specifically to host tsunami videos. In its first five days of existence, the site received over half a million visitors. Hundreds of video clips have been posted, with more being added constantly.
It’s a far cry from when the world’s most famous amateur footage was the work of a single individual, Abraham Zapruder, who chanced to be alongside John F. Kennedy‘s motorcade with a cine camera when the President was assassinated.
“The ease of putting something online” is what drives Huntley, he says (though to his credit he also includes links to aid agencies, so viewers can make donations if they want to help). Soon after launching the site, he said: “At a media company, I’m sure there are channels you have to go through – copyright, legal, editorial, etc. Blogging is instant”.
Yet such an instant approach carries its own risks, as any TV news station’s intake editor knows.This week, Huntley had to remove a compelling piece of footage once he learned it didn’t come from Asia at all, but from a fjord in northern Europe, some years ago, after an iceberg crack-up triggered a tsunami-like wave. “I try to verify submissions,” Huntley had to explain, “but sometimes things like this just slip through”.
Steve Turner (no relation to Ted) the entrepreneur behind Turner Associates, a global media development and video distribution company that’s noted for helping third world countries and aid agencies, both welcomes and critiques today’s “ever present army of amateur cameras, ready to captµre any event“.
An expectation is created, says Turner, “that the media can show anything.” And conversely, the implication can grow that if something is not shown, it has not happened – or is not important. Such conditioned expectations, Turner fears, strengthen the hand of authorities who don’t want sensitive matters reported – “for example, the prohibition on reporting from Guantanamo Bay.”
Which should make us carefully consider, in regard to tsunami reporting, what we are NOT seeing or hearing out of military-controlled Myanmar (or Burma). The country shares a peninsula with Thailand, which has recorded more than 5,000 confirmed deaths and another 4,000 citizens missing. Yet Myanmar’s ruling junta of generals tells the world’s media that its casualties amount to just 59 deaths.
Where’s the video – or simply some verifiable factual reporting – to confirm or contradict that extraordinary claim?
