Vlogging the tsunami
Thursday, January 6, 2005
am New York
They are stunning, heart-stopping 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 our own homes - and we go on seeing it, from fresh angles and in more locations, every time some new amateur footage surfaces.
Once again the ever-growing role of the Internet has been ratcheted up more notches, because now we seem to have a new form of video-distribution. We no longer have to wait for a TV network to transport a team to a far-flung news-site, and satellite back its recordings. In fact news divisions and cable channels have been scurrying after and taking images from "vloggers" - the inevitable new coinage to describe web-loggers who incorporate video into their pages.
One such vlog is Waveofdestruction.org, set up by an Australian blogger, Geoffrey Huntley of Sydney, specifically to host tsunami videos, and in its first five days of existence he received over half a million visitors. Scores hundreds of video clips have been posted, with more added constantly.It?s a far cry from when when the world?s most famous amateur footage was the work of a single individual, Abraham Zapruder, chancing 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 (though to his altruistic credit he also includes links to aid agencies). 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."
Such an instant approach, however, carries its own risks, as any TV station's intake editor already knows. This week Huntley had to remove one 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 had triggered a tsunami-like wave. "I try to verify submissions", Huntley had to explain, "but sometimes things like this just slip through".
Steve Turner, 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 capture any event". An expectation is created, says Turner (no relation to Ted 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 of reporting from Guantanamo Bay".
Which should make us carefully consider, regarding tsunami reporting, what are we NOT seeing or hearing out of miltary-controlled Myanmar (or Burma, as we've known it longer).
The country shares a peninsula with Thailand, which has recorded more than 5,000 confirmed dead and another 4,000 citizens missing. Yet Myanmar's ruling junta of generals tells the world?s media that their casualties amount to just 59 deaths. Where's the video - or simply some verifiable factual reporting - to confirm or contradict that extraordinary claim?