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+--- Thread: Tabloid sensationalism: Drowned father and daughter picture (/showthread.php?tid=229839)
Tabloid sensationalism: Drowned father and daughter picture - SteveG - 06-26-2019
As you know, I have often posted about propaganda shot and tabloid distortions meant to mold opinion. I think the picture of the father and 2 year old daughter who drowned while trying to cross into the U.S. is such a case. It is being used to whip up sentiment and anger. Apparently the publishers and politicians flashing it around don't think the real border misery is enough, so they have to resort to this kind of tactic.
It's a step too far in my opinion, boarding on unsavory exploitive horror.
Re: Tabloid sensationalism: Drowned father and daughter picture - SteveG - 06-26-2019
as opposed to 'Obvious Propaganda with a purpose'
The “Baby Trump” blimp that has followed President Trump around the world will fly just blocks from the White House hours before his Fourth of July address. Mike Litterst, a spokesman with the National Park Service, confirmed to Fox 5 this week that feminist anti-war group Code Pink has been granted a permit to fly the notorious balloon during their anti-Trump demonstration.
Code Pink has raised more than $13,000 as of Wednesday to bring the blimp to its “Freedom from Trump” rally on July 4.
Re: Tabloid sensationalism: Drowned father and daughter picture - bfd - 06-26-2019
Can't agree. This is no different than seeing pictures babies and refugees washed up on the Mediterranean shore, except that now it's happening here. It's not someone else's problem anymore. No more heads in the sand. People need to see what's happening on the border. Some of these people are desperate for a better life. All of us need to see what can happen when we give our tacit consent to a madman and his minions to run roughshod over the Constitution and people's lives.
Sometimes the truth is ugly.
Re: Tabloid sensationalism: Drowned father and daughter picture - mattkime - 06-26-2019
>It is being used to whip up sentiment and anger.
EVERYTHING in the news media aims to do that right now. After all, thats how you get clicks.
Tell us how you would have used that image.
Re: Tabloid sensationalism: Drowned father and daughter picture - rjmacs - 06-26-2019
Steve G. wrote:
As you know, I have often posted about propaganda shot and tabloid distortions meant to mold opinion. I think the picture of the father and 2 year old daughter who drowned while trying to cross into the U.S. is such a case. It is being used to whip up sentiment and anger. Apparently the publishers and politicians flashing it around don't think the real border misery is enough, so they have to resort to this kind of tactic.
It's a step too far in my opinion,boardingbordering on unsavory exploitive horror.
Let me get this straight.
Publishing photographs of grave consequences visited upon desperate people to illustrate the reality of their abjection to the residents of a country evidently blind and deaf to their pain is wrong because it's "unsavory" and "exploitive"?
Get over yourself. These dead can't be exploited - they have had everything stolen from them already, including their humanity. Ask the wife and mother if they want the world to know about their loss. Ask if they think the world should witness their pain and grieve with them. This is timely. This is relevant. This is appropriate and it is necessary.
These people died because we are unwilling to observe our own national and international laws allowing asylum-seekers to cross legally into the U.S. to make their case. They waited for two months in a shelter on the border and were never allowed to present themselves for relief.
There's nothing sensational about that. There's nothing bizarre or unique about their circumstances, or the fatal outcome. Nearly three hundred people (at the least) died trying to cross the border last year, and the numbers will certainly be higher this year. We have done this, we as Americans. They're not crossing Trump's border, they're crossing OUR border.
I'm not a click-bait magazine or newspaper or website, so keep your accusations to yourself.
This is all that remains, outside of memory, of Óscar Alberto Martínez Ramírez and his daughter Valeria:
This is his wife and her mother, Tania Vanessa Ávalos, describing what happened to Mexican authorities:
Re: Tabloid sensationalism: Drowned father and daughter picture - vision63 - 06-26-2019
Why should I observe some law that I didn't create that was designed solely to harm me? Slavery was the law too. These two are the consequences of those laws.
Re: Tabloid sensationalism: Drowned father and daughter picture - Lemon Drop - 06-26-2019
Steve G. wrote:
As you know, I have often posted about propaganda shot and tabloid distortions meant to mold opinion. I think the picture of the father and 2 year old daughter who drowned while trying to cross into the U.S. is such a case. It is being used to whip up sentiment and anger. Apparently the publishers and politicians flashing it around don't think the real border misery is enough, so they have to resort to this kind of tactic.
It's a step too far in my opinion, boarding on unsavory exploitive horror.
I agree. It's poverty porn of the worst variety. When the images are used to sell media, to raise money for charity, or simply for people of privilege like us to gaze at, that's poverty porn. The government of El Salvador, the home country of this father and daughter, appears to be using the image as a caution to others contemplating this dangerous journey. That's a different matter.
In 2018, over 260 people died trying to cross our southern border. Most deaths are from heat, about 50 were from drowning. The number of deaths was actually higher in 2016, before Trump took office. Don't know numbers for 2019 yet but this goes on every year. You don't need an exploitative photograph to tell that story.
Think about who is empowered by the publication of this photo:
The family? No
Their community? No
Immigrants in general? No
El Salvadorans? No
American media? Yes
American politicians? Yes
Nonprofit groups? Yes
Re: Tabloid sensationalism: Drowned father and daughter picture - rjmacs - 06-26-2019
LD -
Do you feel just the same way about photos of immigrant children in U.S. detention camps? Can those stories be told with the same effectiveness without an image? I'm left wondering what the purpose of photojournalism is, if the same story can be told just as effectively without it.
"The twin towers fell today in New York City. There was a proliferation of dust and smoke, and as some people jumped to their deaths, others on the ground streamed forth covered in sweat, blood, dust and debris."
Re: Tabloid sensationalism: Drowned father and daughter picture - Lemon Drop - 06-26-2019
rjmacs wrote:
LD -
Do you feel just the same way about photos of immigrant children in U.S. detention camps? Can those stories be told with the same effectiveness without an image? I'm left wondering what the purpose of photojournalism is, if the same story can be told just as effectively without it.
"The twin towers fell today in New York City. There was a proliferation of dust and smoke, and as some people jumped to their deaths, others on the ground streamed forth covered in sweat, blood, dust and debris."
Yes, I feel EXACTLY the same way about photos of those children - which should not be published. The facility and adults who run it? Sure, publish those.
9/11? That's not poverty porn. This is about a very specific type of photograph, distributed for specific purposes. Not photojournalism in general, which has obvious merit.
Re: Tabloid sensationalism: Drowned father and daughter picture - mattkime - 06-26-2019
>9/11? That's not poverty porn.
I'm still not clear how you're drawing lines between things. is this wrong because the people are poor? Are there other reasons why its wrong?