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OCA Jose Navarro shares his feelings about footage shown on BBC

To find out more details about the transfer to The Open University see A New Chapter for OCA.

Why…? thumb

Why…?


Why are the BBC showing this video? What sort of message, information, do they want to convey to the viewer? Why do they show subquality, smart(less)phone unverified footage from an unverified source? Why do the BBC find it appropriate to forward such rubbish from YouTube?
Why, watching this video, do I have this sinking feeling of voyeuristic complicity with whoever, insensitively, recorded it? Why do we have to make a spectacle of everything? Specifically, why do we have to make a spectacle of other fellow human beings’ distress? Why did the citizen-come-unethical-journalist who recorded it did not feel his or her actions were objectionable?
Why did he or she feel it was OK to point a slab of pocketable hi-tech with an electronic eye at some bloodied innocent victim? Why, after having been lured into playing the video, I feel cheated by an otherwise reputable media institution? Why did I feel the need to do it…was it my fault to want to watch it?
Why did I have such a strong urge to write this post in the middle of my lunch break? Because I felt indignant.
Can someone help me answer some of the other questions?


Posted by author: Jose

29 thoughts on “Why…?

  • Personally I see it as a trend common to all broadcast media who now have 24×7 air time to fill, but it’s a pity the BBC feel they have to compete as they do in many other areas (why pay for £1m for The Simpsons when it’s shown on several channels, or F1, or any of the big sports events?)
    Murdoch has a lot to answer for by reducing the media to the lowest common denominator.

  • Jose
    I looked up this bit of video and it seems that it has been removed; was not able to find it anyway although there was a URL … http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-18925312
    Seems your view is not an entirely personal one Jose !
    I wanted to see it because I wanted to know what you were talking about – however, as news it does not really stand up since it probably can’t be verified, it just gives people the idea that they have also seen what happened!!

  • I haven’t seen the video myself……….but the answer to the why question is easy……..MONEY (or audience which is basically the same).
    And don’t complain about the BBC………the majority of tv channels are rubbish compared with it (I remember some TVE in the southwest of europe).

    • don’t complain about the BBC………the majority of tv channels are rubbish compared with it
      That’s a terrible argument. OCA students should question every bit of culture that passes under their noses

      • It suddenly dawned on me the other day why ‘media studies’ has been so ridiculed – the media doesn’t want to be scrutinised… !

  • Why did the citizen-come-unethical-journalist who recorded it did not feel his or her actions were objectionable?
    I don’t have an issue with whoever made this clip – such recordings can be useful later on as evidence – however, I do wonder at the posting, at the obvious sensationalism it is likely to create.
    The BBC drawing attention to it is strange but probably to be expected these days.
    Personally, I like the BBC for their impartiality but they still seem to have a point of view which is most likely determined by their politics.

  • This reminds me of a headline I saw a few years ago promoting the Standard’s then current edition. It said something like: “Massacre at (x). 12 killed – pictures.” It was clear that the editors thought the pictures were a big selling point. It shocked me at the time and I have never forgotten it. It felt as if curiosity was expected to be our prime reaction rather than empathy or caring. I suppose it worried me that the editors might well be right.
    This clip is the 6th most watched thing on BBC News as I write (and I’m sure that’s not all WeAreOCA readers). Perhaps it’s just human nature to want to see everything for ourselves. Perhaps a failure of our collective imagination makes everything more real if you can just see it.
    I’m not at all sure that this is a new phenomenon. A few hundred years ago people queued for ringside seats at public hangings and some hundreds of years before then gladiators fought to the death in front of packed arenas. I sometimes wonder if phenomena such as Big Brother and football matches are relatively harmless ways of working out our innate aggression. One of the images we saw at Out of Focus was a picture of a lynching. Blown up to the size of a cathedral window I found it almost unbearable to look at. I know that pictures were taken of such events in the South and traded like postcards.
    I do agree that it is voyeuristic and a fairly lazy and reprehensible piece of reporting. I normally expect more from BBC than from a typical tabloid paper and they are normally quite scrupulous in double-checking sources and aiming to give relatively balanced coverage. I suspect this is still there because most people were too shocked to take pictures and so there are no better ones to substitute, and the BBC knows this is a big story and wants to cover it. I am disappointed in them but aware that I also looked at the link before commenting. What does that say about me? Not sure.

  • I know this is not the main point we are try to discuss here, but I feel I know too little about what is appropriate for editorial to comment on this. However, if you want the video without sound, I struggle to see what is the video is about. I don’t see what is the context, or if there is a subject the video is focusing or following on. Without the voice or subtext, I would not in a million years guess this is outside a murder screen. Does information provider to the viewers increase by embedding this video? I have my doubt. Why BBC uses footage carry next to no additional information? Not sure.
    Let’s go be to the subject of appropriateness of recording a video at a murder screen. I have seen gory images from the World Press Photography award. From portrait of woman who get her nose cut off because she is daring enough to leave her abusive husband, to people dying from AIDS without medicine, and to people in war torn area. Some of these photographs record human distress. Is this ethical then? I remember Diane Arbus has one photograph of bike accident with a ring of blood next to a bicycle. So what if I see a biker just got ran over right in front of me now? Am I allow to shoot? Or this is just unethical?

  • The feeling of voyeuristic complicity is, I’m afraid, a deserved self-criticism.
    In the past I’ve had a similar sensation, and now question my motives before looking at anything like this. The result, generally, is that I don’t look.
    In recording or photographing such scenes it is appropriate to ask yourself whose benefit is this for? Will it help the victims? Will it prevent similar events, or encourage copy-cats? Or is it all about the money…?

  • I wonder if the American Republicans were as bigoted and frankly insane as they are now before Fox news came into their lives? I recently had dinner at an event with an American colleague and I couldn’t believe what I was hearing, eg “do you know that Obama wants to allow Mexicans to be treated for gunshot wounds in American hospitals?” me- ” why not, they’ve probably been shot in America”. Him – ” but he wants to treat them, and they won’t pay”. And there was lots more, from this guy who I’ve worked with virtually for years.
    I like Murdoch, we both despise the English establishment and the English class system. But he has reduced editorial control (censorship?) to show anything and see what sells, and sadly since most spending power is with the masses of uneducated unthinking downtrodden herds then crap prevails.
    I don’t want to see people being hurt but sometimes it is necessary, eg Vietnam war. When the American herd see the Colorado shootings they are told to demand guns for all by Fox and Murdoch, who are sponsored by various gun makers.
    But back to me, I don’t want to see it and I don’t seek it out, but sometimes I look, at this clip for example, and then I’m part of the problem, another one of the millions who looks just to see how bad everyone else is.
    How to fix it? No idea, don’t think it can be fixed, I think it’s human nature.

    • Hi Brian, at least in the case of youtube clips, where views are counted, we can vote with our feet.

  • I haven’t seen this clip and don’t want to. I think it’s just a modern variant on human beings’ need to project or displace their violent urges; to experience it vicariously. While else would they have flocked to see executions in the past or gather now at the scene of accidents.

  • I, too, don’t wish to see it. I’ve read enough. I don’t read sensationalist, violent articles in the papers unless they are really ‘news’ and then I only read enough to know the basic facts. If it’s something do do with a crime of passion and bits of bodies found in various bags, I don’t read on, but if it’s something about an outrageous war crime, I want to know the facts.

  • Isn’t it obvious why the Beeb played this? They weren’t there to cover it when it happened so they do the next best thing take anything that was there when it happened, just so that they show an ‘insider’s’ perspective. (Rather than just filming the miserable parade of endless footage afterwards of all the politicians parading their pity, in order to get re-elected, to the families,) I prefer not to watch clips like this, but understand that people watch it to try and understand what happened (for both reasonable and voyeuristic reasons).

  • It is one of the big problems with TV news these days that it is dominated by the need to have pictures of whatever is being reported – I assume this was the reason for showing this video. If you listen to the news on radio 4 and compare it with the BBC TV news it might as well be a different world. Personally I would like to see TV editors occasionally have the courage to report a story without pictures just because it is important.

  • I’ve come to this late, but as Peter sums up and as studied in UVC, thats the nature of (post)modern society. ‘The Gulf War did not take place’ might sound sensationalist, argumentative or just plain wrong from the title, but it’s an interesting text…

    • …good question Tim…I read your comment this morning and have been procrastinating until now (3pm) because it truly made me think…
      The answer is that I don’t know. I guess that had that footage been taken by a professional photojournalist I would have probably been even more shocked by their poor judgement – and technical as well as narrative incompetence.
      Personally, I don’t think that sticking the label ‘photojournalist’ on your shirt exonerates you from taking sound ethical decisions for the sake of producing some hot newsworthy material. In fact, that label demands that you think about them even harder.
      I’m answering your question very tangentially as you may have noticed… :-/ I don’t know if my response would have been the same… it’s a good question.

      • Hi Jose, that was my first post on this forum, glad you think it was a good question! However I’m not sure I was successful in putting across my point. I wasn’t seeking to challenge your view based on the identity of the person recording the footage, but rather trying to disentangle what to me seem to be two separate arguments contained within your post, which rather than reinforcing, seem to cloud each other.
        There is the question of whether recording the scene at all is ethical.
        A lot of the language used in your post seems concerned with the technology involved, and the amateurish nature of the footage. I suggest this is a different issue, would, for instance, shaky cameraphone footage of Phan Thi Kim Phuc be ethically different to Nick Ut’s celebrated photograph? And yes I realise I’m providing no answers!

        • Tim, yes, it is true that there are two threads in my post, but they are very closely linked. For me it’s all down to something that, in photography, is of the essence: intention. Why did that person record it? A professional photojournalist would have given a satisfactory answer to that question. Although the issue of whether it was ethical to record the scene still remains.
          So I’ll ask the same question again, expanding on it this time…why did that person record the scene with their smartphone instead of, for example, helping and comforting a distressed victim? That person wasn’t on a professional role after all…

          • The following is from my wordpress blog; seems relevant to the present discussion …
            Sharon shows me a fascinating article in The Guardian Weekend magazine (28.7.2012) in which different photojournalists discuss their feelings about photographing people in distress when they might actually be helping them. The words of one photographer, Ian Berry, seem particularly relevant when he says … “When you are working with a camera, you tend to disassociate yourself from what’s going on. Your’e just an observer!”

  • I’ve come at this even later but…
    I looked at this because I thought it would be difficult to comment on properly without doing so first. Would I have looked at it if someone sent me a link or I was looking on the BBC site (which I don’t do)? Possibly: As much as I can’t stand Freud, I think it is in our nature to take some sort of pleasure out of looking at things we know we shouldn’t. That’s why there’s always a traffic jam in the wrong direction when there’s a pile up ( or even a small prang for that matter) on the motorway.
    I didn’t find the content of this footage at all upsetting actually. But my feeling certainly echoed Jose’s sentiment: Why? indeed. This footage describes nothing and really has not journalistic value at all. It clearly says more about the state of journalism today, given all the rich responses to Jose’s post, rather than anything about the appalling incident itself.
    The BBC headline is “Footage shows ‘panic and chaos’ following cinema shooting”. The inverted comas are pretty important here, as it distinguishes a quote from the bulletin: a quote by the news commentator. But the footage doesn’t show panic and chaos at all (as far as I can see). Yes, I could make out a guy with blood all over his shirt, but I’ve seen a lot worse outside a kebab van in Bristol on a Saturday night.
    What is chaotic is the footage itself – terrible sound quality and completely hectic in terms of the direction of the camera. So it’s fair to say the footage is ‘chaotic’ and gives a sense of ‘panic’, but the footage (in my views) does not SHOW panic or chaos. So the headline is misleading in any case.
    Anyway. Listen to the radio, I say!
    Jose, I hope you are having a good trip and aren’t reading this.

  • I’ve come to this late as well—because I’ve gone back and found on my blog where I had what I think are similar thoughts in the past. [http://vickifoto.co.uk/2011/12/22/this-made-me-uncomfortable/] and [http://vickifoto.co.uk/2011/09/20/to-shoot-or-not-to-shoot/].
    Like some above me, I am separating out the quality of the capture, the content, the intention and the transmitter of the information [BBC].
    Does a photojournalist have a ‘duty’ to capture images or footage which might be distasteful or harrowing? Yes.
    In the event that there is no photojournalist present, does that duty fall to a bystander? I think so.
    Was the decision of the BBC to transmit the video footage correct? Really not sure here. I checked today and the footage is still at the link provided by Amano at the beginning of the thread; however the ‘panic and chaos’ headline is no longer there; and they are now saying it is unverified. But my problem is with the quality and with what it shows/does not show. The voiceover is what gives the explanation; the content as Jesse says above really does not show what we know to be happening—and because of this, I think it has little merit and should not have been shown. But guess, in their rush to get something online, anything was seen as better than nothing—that I have problems with.
    My rambling tuppence worth…

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