Dear friends,
The person who originally suggested that the footage of Palestinians was
from the 1991 invasion of Kuwait has retracted that statement. He
tracked down the woman in Brazil who presumably had a copy of the 1991
videotaped footage. It turns out she had no such videotape, just seemed
to remember that same footage from 1991. That's a significantly weaker
allegation.
The retraction is at:
http://www.indymedia.org/front.php3?article_id=64366
An issue, for me, however, is that I don't believe it is unusual to use
some stock footage to sometimes "illlustrate" a news account that may
not have footage. The premium in television journalism is on video and
images.
Generally, should video images be used to "illustrate" if they are not
specific footage of what is being described? I'm not sure if they are
used this way, but suspect they are. Perhaps others have first-hand
knowledge?
In this particular case it seems that the footage may be accurate
footage from Sept 11. Yet other critics have, I think rightly,
questioned the use of the video when the celebration was not a universal
response of Palestinians. Many Palestinians grieved and proclaimed some
solidarity with the victims, families and other members of the world
community. But those were not captured in video images. I have seen
testimony, for instance, from a U.S. United Methodist liaison in Israel
who has experienced outpourings of grief and support from Palestinians
and shared that on Sept 11 list discussions.
What is also interesting to me is the amount of effort that was put in
to corroborating the claim that the footage was from 1991 (the person
tracking down the alleged source in Brazil). I don't think we generally
demand that level of corroboration for images we receive from the major
media giants; perhaps we just grant them a level of authority, or some
of us are innured to their images, or some of us are skeptical. But
whatever the stance, my sense is that images have impact and elicit
responses that may not always be easily analyzed away.
Just some thoughts on the dominance of video media, and the need for
critical media literacy.
In Peace,
K.
This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Wed Oct 10 2001 - 15:49:18 PDT