Use To Be A Picture Was Worth A Thousand Words

Not Anymore

As if it weren't bad enough that any photo or video can be completely fabricated in today's digital world there's this...

AlterNet is reporting, "When the news broke that National Geographic was sold to Rupert Murdoch, fans of the magazine gasped. A magazine known for its photo essays paired with reports often based on scientific research being under the control of an outspoken climate change denier worried them... Six corporations own 90 per cent of the media companies in the U.S...."



In today's world of commercial reporting videographers and photo journalists were left go in mass. I wish I had a nickel for every time I see the words "file photo" under a report. Same goes with TV reporting with stock videos looping endlessly aside the news reader. Some of them weeks, months, if not years old.

It's one thing to cut costs, entirely another when older shoots are being used to fit an agenda. According to this article, "The Guardian licensed a photograph from Corbis Images that I shot in 2012 of a barrier island in Louisiana’s Barrataria Bay to illustrate a story about coastal erosion in 2014. The photo shows birds on healthy mangrove trees in a bird rookery. The report, published on October 14, 2014, makes no mention that the photo was taken in 2012, and gives a false impression of what the island looked like at that time. I reshot the same location for a DeSmog report in the spring of 2013. My photos show by 2013, the island’s mangrove trees were dead...."

Nearly half of what major media reports depends on photos and videos uploaded to the internet by various individuals. What should concern us is how corporate controlled media spin these after they get a hold of them. The question comes down to trust. Do we trust what people say first hand after uploading them or the corporate controlled spin meisters once they get a hold of them?

Pundit mouthpieces in almost all cases have read the same stories or watched the same videos we all did. They don't have any more first hand knowledge then what we do. That doesn't stop them from appearing on the boob tube or in print. This is how they make their living. The more outrageous, the more they can earn by being invited back to push whatever agenda media thinks will get them the most readers or viewers. Thus good solid reporting becomes secondary.

"He who controls the past controls the future.
He who controls the present controls the past."
~ George Orwell, "1984" ~