Photojournalism in Syria

[Cold]

http://www.pressgazette.co.uk/sunday...tographs-syria

Came across this piece today after a friend of a friend posted it on Facebook.

I have somewhat mixed feelings about this, and I'm just interested to get the reaction of other photographers, especially (but certainly not limited to) current and former photojournalists.

[Darkroom317]

I think that they are wrong. If you have the photos available you should run them. A media blaackout is one thing but to have them and not publish them is almost complicence with the regime. The people fo the world have the right to know what is happening there, to not publish photos like this is keeping information from the people. Also, the photograph took great risk in getting these photos. If I were him I would approach another publication.

[Diapositivo]

A newspaper publishes news. War makes news.

I have to interpret this as an affirmation, by the Sunday Times, that they publish only second- or third-hand material from other newspapers who "immorally" gather news from Syria, or that they just don't talk at all about the civil war in Syria.

Maybe we can conclude, from this, that the Sunday Times simply is not a newspaper.

When you buy a newspaper you do it because you expect to find information, not "moral decisions".

"Embedded journalism" had the final result of making some confuse government press statements with "information".

[AgX]

I think that they are wrong. If you have the photos available you should run them. A media blaackout is one thing but to have them and not publish them is almost complicence with the regime.

The idea is that there would not be photographs as there is no more commercial incentive to make them.

But what about photographs made without commercial interest and still offerred?

[Vilk]

The people fo the world have the right to know...

they do--in proportion to the effort they have expended on making the bloodshed stop

i'm with paterson; sounds like a journalist i'd like to meet for a change

[StoneNYC]

I get the litigious angle they are going at but it seems a pretty sad commentary on our world that news isn't news unless its safe for the journal/newspaper to print without repercussion.

I was recently at a news desk at 30 Rock (Rockefeller Center NY MSNBC news desk) and one of the desks had a quote on it which I found interesting... Which I now can't find even though I personally wrote it down... Ugh... Well it basically said 'newspapers should be shocking, if its not shocking then it's just advertisement for someone' that is a terrible paraphrase of a really good quote but that's the simplest I could get it down to.

Anyway I think that news has gone down the toilet, I haven't watched a news anchor on TV and not been embarrassed by how uneducated and in cultured they are, they are trying to appeal (relate) to the stupid people by hiring buffoons to report instead of acting like real journalists because speaking intelligently would probably confuse half the population and they would change the channel instead of challenging them to be more intelligent and worldly It's a pretty sad state of affairs... And now newspapers are failing just as badly... I'm afraid for the future... Does anyone know what happened with that 'propaganda bill'? Maybe that's why they won't take Syrian coverage.


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

[Darkroom317]

I get the litigious angle they are going at but it seems a pretty sad commentary on our world that news isn't news unless its safe for the journal/newspaper to print without repercussion.

I was recently at a news desk at 30 Rock (Rockefeller Center NY MSNBC news desk) and one of the desks had a quote on it which I found interesting... Which I now can't find even though I personally wrote it down... Ugh... Well it basically said 'newspapers should be shocking, if its not shocking then it's just advertisement for someone' that is a terrible paraphrase of a really good quote but that's the simplest I could get it down to.

Anyway I think that news has gone down the toilet, I haven't watched a news anchor on TV and not been embarrassed by how uneducated and in cultured they are, they are trying to appeal (relate) to the stupid people by hiring buffoons to report instead of acting like real journalists because speaking intelligently would probably confuse half the population and they would change the channel instead of challenging them to be more intelligent and worldly It's a pretty sad state of affairs... And now newspapers are failing just as badly... I'm afraid for the future... Does anyone know what happened with that 'propaganda bill'? Maybe that's why they won't take Syrian coverage.


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

I thoroughly agree with this. Broadcast has completely different standards both in intelligence and in ethics as opposed to print. They are celebrities who like to sit in the studio and pretend to know what they are talking about. Real journalists report from the field and interview people from all sorts of situations, not so called experts who work for that network.

[StoneNYC]

I thoroughly agree with this. Broadcast has completely different standards both in intelligence and in ethics as opposed to print. They are celebrities who like to sit in the studio and pretend to know what they are talking about. Real journalists report from the field and interview people from all sorts of situations, not so called experts who work for that network.

+1


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk

[summicron1]

i think the newspaper is making a morally correct decision -- they have their own staff, as they say, and their staff reporters and photographers are paid to go there.

The problem is that there are too many would-be David Douglas Duncans out there hoping to become a great photojournalist, and wars have become something of a magnet for them. I remember in Sarajevo the residents came to hate the media who seemed to see their suffering and dying as some sort of show for the rest of the world. The photographers would stake out a spot where they knew snipers were shooting and wait for someone to get it.

and the paper isn't saying don't go -- it's just saying if you do, we're not buying.

[StoneNYC]

i think the newspaper is making a morally correct decision -- they have their own staff, as they say, and their staff reporters and photographers are paid to go there.

The problem is that there are too many would-be David Douglas Duncans out there hoping to become a great photojournalist, and wars have become something of a magnet for them. I remember in Sarajevo the residents came to hate the media who seemed to see their suffering and dying as some sort of show for the rest of the world. The photographers would stake out a spot where they knew snipers were shooting and wait for someone to get it.

and the paper isn't saying don't go -- it's just saying if you do, we're not buying.

Would you say this about Steve McCurry?


~Stone

Mamiya: 7 II, RZ67 Pro II / Canon: 1V, AE-1, 5DmkII / Kodak: No 1 Pocket Autographic, No 1A Pocket Autographic | Sent w/ iPhone using Tapatalk