1. A new news filter that promises unfiltered news. LAO
2. Howard Kurtz profiles the Center for Public Integrity. WaPo
3. Corporate puppets versus hometown publishers. Anniston Star
4. Lemon juice does not make you invisible. Errol Morris
Showing posts with label errol morris. Show all posts
Showing posts with label errol morris. Show all posts
Jun 21, 2010
Aug 7, 2009
Four Friday
1. World's oldest Sunday paper considers closing. Newspaper Death Watch
2. Mark Halperin at Time magazine doesn't like town hall mobsters (but he still likes Drudge). TIME
3. Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor, has some thoughts on health care reform: Beware the "death panel." Facebook
4. Errol Morris looks at the lies about lying. Part 1 and Part 2
2. Mark Halperin at Time magazine doesn't like town hall mobsters (but he still likes Drudge). TIME
3. Sarah Palin, former Alaska governor, has some thoughts on health care reform: Beware the "death panel." Facebook
4. Errol Morris looks at the lies about lying. Part 1 and Part 2
Aug 17, 2008
What's the objective?
Errol Morris has a brilliant piece on the power of the image and the art of manipulation at his New York Times blog.
A thought occurred to me while reading the article that has nothing to do with photography, and it has to do with the role journalism plays in creating a common language by which society can on some level agree that "this is so" and "this is not so." Apply that, in turn, to a political campaign or an international crisis and you can see there is a lot of work that needs to be done if we want to maintain an institution that can credibly - if not always perfectly - call a deception a deception.
In our time we have come to increasingly distrust the notion of objectivity. Subjective analysis has often brought us more satisfaction and, self-reflexively, given us reason to think "objectivity" is merely a veil of authenticity used to disguise the subjective analysis of others underneath. That and the decentralization of information brought by the Internet has us experimenting with subjectivity and trying to discover whether a higher truth can be surmised through subjective analysis than ever could if objectivity was the goal.
Subjectivity is empowering - we can choose for ourselves, we can decide without the instruction of some institution. Also, the architecture of the Internet eliminates a hierarchy in information that served to bolster the claim of objectivity. A newspaper is a rare thing, carefully put together with a mass of resources and talent unavailable to all but a tiny few media companies. Who else but the New York Times could bring you all the news fit to print? The Internet puts all information on level ground. The front page of the New York Times appears on the same screen as this website and countless others. The visual cues are similar and the functionality of the page the same. What then do we rely on to know which bits of information are more trustworthy than others save through subjective analysis? (Brand might provide some weight, but that too slips into subjectivity given the number of brands competing for our attention.)
All of which means we should be that much more mindful of the risks that come with blurring the lines between news and propaganda. Those institutions that want your money and your allegiance would like for us to see news and propaganda as two sides to the same coin. The next question for news organizations then is not how to reinvent business models, it's how to define places online where deception is exposed and where society can come to find out whether "this is so" or "this is not so." Trying to be as subjective as everyone else is to disappear.
Errol Morris has a brilliant piece on the power of the image and the art of manipulation at his New York Times blog.
A thought occurred to me while reading the article that has nothing to do with photography, and it has to do with the role journalism plays in creating a common language by which society can on some level agree that "this is so" and "this is not so." Apply that, in turn, to a political campaign or an international crisis and you can see there is a lot of work that needs to be done if we want to maintain an institution that can credibly - if not always perfectly - call a deception a deception.
In our time we have come to increasingly distrust the notion of objectivity. Subjective analysis has often brought us more satisfaction and, self-reflexively, given us reason to think "objectivity" is merely a veil of authenticity used to disguise the subjective analysis of others underneath. That and the decentralization of information brought by the Internet has us experimenting with subjectivity and trying to discover whether a higher truth can be surmised through subjective analysis than ever could if objectivity was the goal.
Subjectivity is empowering - we can choose for ourselves, we can decide without the instruction of some institution. Also, the architecture of the Internet eliminates a hierarchy in information that served to bolster the claim of objectivity. A newspaper is a rare thing, carefully put together with a mass of resources and talent unavailable to all but a tiny few media companies. Who else but the New York Times could bring you all the news fit to print? The Internet puts all information on level ground. The front page of the New York Times appears on the same screen as this website and countless others. The visual cues are similar and the functionality of the page the same. What then do we rely on to know which bits of information are more trustworthy than others save through subjective analysis? (Brand might provide some weight, but that too slips into subjectivity given the number of brands competing for our attention.)
All of which means we should be that much more mindful of the risks that come with blurring the lines between news and propaganda. Those institutions that want your money and your allegiance would like for us to see news and propaganda as two sides to the same coin. The next question for news organizations then is not how to reinvent business models, it's how to define places online where deception is exposed and where society can come to find out whether "this is so" or "this is not so." Trying to be as subjective as everyone else is to disappear.
Dec 19, 2007
Two pictures (second act)*
Having mined through several hundred of the 900+ comments following the first story about the two Roger Fenton photographs of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I move on to part two, which gives a longer account of the Crimean War as well as some surprising findings about the orientation of the Fenton's tripod (he faced north, not south).
Is this a case of distraction journalism? Perhaps.
Now, on to part three... Seems like he answers the question without answering the question. There's an indication that gravity was involved in the solution, but maybe I'm missing a link... Indeed I am. NYT f-ed up. Here's the REAL part three.
Uh-oh, some strange facts are emerging. More to come.
*So we get an answer, using empirical proof found in the two photographs. I'm left feeling that I knew the answers (and others did, too) but without the need of this empirical proof. The prof is only needed if the answer must withstand a certain type of scrutiny, the exact type of scrutiny Errol Morris demanded. He concludes:
I tried hard to prove that Keller and Sontag were wrong – to prove that ON came before OFF. I failed. I can’t deny it. But I did prove that they were right for the wrong reasons. It is not their assessment of Fenton’s character or lack of character that establishes the order of the pictures. Nor is it sun-angle and shadow. Rather it is the motion of ancillary rocks – rocks that had been kicked, nudged, displaced between the taking of one picture and the other.
Perhaps their argument for 'why' they though as they did wasn't as sound, but were they clearly wrong in their assessment?
Having mined through several hundred of the 900+ comments following the first story about the two Roger Fenton photographs of the Valley of the Shadow of Death, I move on to part two, which gives a longer account of the Crimean War as well as some surprising findings about the orientation of the Fenton's tripod (he faced north, not south).
Is this a case of distraction journalism? Perhaps.
Now, on to part three... Seems like he answers the question without answering the question. There's an indication that gravity was involved in the solution, but maybe I'm missing a link... Indeed I am. NYT f-ed up. Here's the REAL part three.
Uh-oh, some strange facts are emerging. More to come.
*So we get an answer, using empirical proof found in the two photographs. I'm left feeling that I knew the answers (and others did, too) but without the need of this empirical proof. The prof is only needed if the answer must withstand a certain type of scrutiny, the exact type of scrutiny Errol Morris demanded. He concludes:
I tried hard to prove that Keller and Sontag were wrong – to prove that ON came before OFF. I failed. I can’t deny it. But I did prove that they were right for the wrong reasons. It is not their assessment of Fenton’s character or lack of character that establishes the order of the pictures. Nor is it sun-angle and shadow. Rather it is the motion of ancillary rocks – rocks that had been kicked, nudged, displaced between the taking of one picture and the other.
Perhaps their argument for 'why' they though as they did wasn't as sound, but were they clearly wrong in their assessment?
Two pictures, thousands of words*, **, ***, ****
Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris makes fascinating use of the Internet in a project over at the New York Times, asking readers to help cut through the psychological suppositions to get at an unanswerable answer.
The question has to do with cannon balls on a road (and not on a road) in two famous photographs from the Crimean War. Is one of the photographs staged? If so, which one?
I've only read the first of three stories so far. Asterisks to come.
*In reading through the first hundred or so comments on Morris' first story, a pattern emerges: Most of the readers think a simple examination of data within the frames will provide an easy answer. They discount motivations and psychological factors that could easily change the interpretation of their facts. Then there are a few comments scattered among the others from readers who wonder why the question needs to be answered at all.
**Oh, I forgot to mention the more studious readers who keep asking for better quality photographs to examine. As if higher resolution will bring a resolution.
***As the day moves on, later commentators (those who sleep in are less empirically minded?) start to look at motivations and come back to theory. The odd grouping of the cannon balls on the road, the fact that they could have been brought in from somewhere else, that light and shadow in 150-year-old photographs isn't a reliable measure, that other "facts" are based on assumptions... Again, fascinating stuff.
****My own questions: Why take a second photograph if he was not looking for improvement? Why not mention in your letter (you have to read the article) what happened during the gap between the two photographs, especially if it was something significant like A. a new volley of cannon balls or B. soldiers out harvesting in a dangerous place? Which is the better picture/the one he favored? Couldn't he have carried additional balls out to the field in his photographer's van? (I guess he staged the cannon ball shot in the road) OK, enough asterisks. I'll create a new post for the second article.
Documentary filmmaker Errol Morris makes fascinating use of the Internet in a project over at the New York Times, asking readers to help cut through the psychological suppositions to get at an unanswerable answer.
The question has to do with cannon balls on a road (and not on a road) in two famous photographs from the Crimean War. Is one of the photographs staged? If so, which one?
I've only read the first of three stories so far. Asterisks to come.
*In reading through the first hundred or so comments on Morris' first story, a pattern emerges: Most of the readers think a simple examination of data within the frames will provide an easy answer. They discount motivations and psychological factors that could easily change the interpretation of their facts. Then there are a few comments scattered among the others from readers who wonder why the question needs to be answered at all.
**Oh, I forgot to mention the more studious readers who keep asking for better quality photographs to examine. As if higher resolution will bring a resolution.
***As the day moves on, later commentators (those who sleep in are less empirically minded?) start to look at motivations and come back to theory. The odd grouping of the cannon balls on the road, the fact that they could have been brought in from somewhere else, that light and shadow in 150-year-old photographs isn't a reliable measure, that other "facts" are based on assumptions... Again, fascinating stuff.
****My own questions: Why take a second photograph if he was not looking for improvement? Why not mention in your letter (you have to read the article) what happened during the gap between the two photographs, especially if it was something significant like A. a new volley of cannon balls or B. soldiers out harvesting in a dangerous place? Which is the better picture/the one he favored? Couldn't he have carried additional balls out to the field in his photographer's van? (I guess he staged the cannon ball shot in the road) OK, enough asterisks. I'll create a new post for the second article.
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