Tag: news

Film paintings photos, The News Media

The crucial questions. Media in Focus (& lucky color) (interview, Marichu Lambino)

(Lucky color today, says the morning show astrologer: Olive green.) Here is the first part of the video. the continuation has been posted earlier in this blog (previous post) so the discussion is subject to, or continued in the earlier post (don’t want to have to repeat it here, pakibasa na lang uli, tnx.). About 400 megabytes compressed into 55 megabytes, very grainy, on 24 frames per second, with the resulting dark horizontal band on the screen from 0:29 to 1:32 which covered the beautiful face of Gretchen Malalad, apologies. But it gets better from 4:00 onwards, the faces could be seen. By the way, the other day, the entertainment portal http://www.spot.ph released the results of its poll or survey: Gretchen Malalad was voted top ten “hottest’” newswomen. Gretchen in this video narrated the back story of the story, or how they came upon the aftermath of the “encounter”.

the blog discussion on the ethical issues is as follows: When the police chief apologized for one of his men for accusing ABS-CBN reporters of having “delayed” the police in bringing the injured person to the hospital, it was in effect a retraction, and the full footage clearly showed that the police held the injured person in their vehicle and called the ABS-CBN reporters to film him and ask him questions; so, it was clear that it was not the reporters who caused the delay or any delay.

The anchor, Tony Velasquez, then asked the crucial question: Should the camera crew continue filming an injured person or should they ask the police to bring the person to the hospital? (should the reporter tell the police what to do, or should the journalist ask the police instead what they are doing, or should the camera crew themselves intervene by bringing the injured person to the hospital?)

i said something like journalists on the field are in the best position to decide ethical questions like that, or when they should cease being journalists and “intervene” in the unfolding of events by, well, being human.

On the other hand, international media organizations such as CNN and BBC do not show images of dead people or of dying persons. In the Philippines, the codes of ethics of media organizations frown upon or proscribe showing the face of a dead person, or a zoomed-in image of the face of a dead person; media organizations also frown upon the showing of too much blood (if they have to, it is either pixelized or shown as a line shot or in black and white); mangled body parts are also not shown. Usually, local media organizations just show the feet or the hands of the dead person, or a long shot of the body. However, this situation is more complicated because the person was alive when in custody, police told the reporters they could film him, the camerastaff and reporter did not know, at first, the extent of the injuries, and to make matters even more complicated, he did not die of those injuries, the medical report stated that he died of asphyxiation, and he was in custody of the police when he died.

Gretchen Malalad also pointed out that they trusted the police to hold only a person who didn’t have to be rushed to the hospital right away. This video is continued in the earlier post.

Apologies again for the quality of the upload. Thanks for viewing!


Film paintings photos, The News Media

Crime, Media in Focus by ANC (interview, Marichu Lambino)

354 megabytes compressed into 45 megabytes, on a 24-frames-per-second digicam (which explains the dark horizontal band over the screen), hurriedly done, on very faint audio (you have to turn up your computer speaker to 100%), very grainy:

Here’s the blog discussion of  that: The KBP code of ethics and other codes of ethics of  press organizations state only very generally that graphic images of violence and  gore should not be shown, but do not specify when  an image is considered too graphic to be presented that it should be pixelized or cut altogether thus sacrificing some information it might contain.

And so…When (or where)  is editorial judgment exercised? In the newsroom — the cutting and the exercise of self-restraint occur in the newsroom, by the news director and the news department (and it should be exercised well) ; on the other hand, administratively or managerially speaking, the camerastaff  is always instructed to film an event as it unfolds, and to keep filming,  and not to censor themselves while on the field. When a camerastaff  decides to censor himself/ herself by stopping the shoot, a lot of valuable information might be lost.

(the question of whether a camerastaff  should keep filming or stop filming,  an injured person is addressed in the first segment, next video; still being uploaded.)

As background, i clarified too  that: In the first news broadcast of the news story, the news program showed only a brief shot, maybe 2-3 seconds,  in black and white, without audio, of the injured person; in the next clip, the body of the person covered by a blanket, was shown being brought to the morgue. Thus, the newsroom exercised some restraint there, in the first news broadcast. It was only a few days later, when the cameraman and reporter were accused by the police of obstruction of justice, and they  had to explain themselves, that the full footage was shown; and i think that’s when the audience reacted to the images, per se (well, at least, my students who saw it), not necessarily to the explanation; images are sometimes more powerful than the words being used  as voice over. So…if you’re going to show the full footage of a shoot as powerful, or as impactful, or as graphic as this one, the explanation as to your purpose should be explained more fully so the audience understands why it is justified to show such a video;  at the very  least there should be a “warning” to, or  a “forewarning” of, the audience.

(for the administration of justice, for example, as evidence,  is a justifiable purpose – convey your purpose).

(apologies for the poor quality of the upload. Faint audio too, please turn up your speakers.)