Photo Journalism

                                              Image from ninemsn

This morning when I logged onto the ninemsn home page I was confronted with the most extraordinary piece of photo journalism I have seen in a long time. The picture was taken at the Notting Hill carnival in London only hours before and shows a young man standing in the middle of the street, arms outstretched as blood pours from the fresh stab wound on the side of his torso. His attacker is running away from him while police look on with obvious shock and confusion. In the foreground of the picture is a middle-aged man sticking out his leg in a bid to trip-up the running man.  Despite its graphic nature and intolerable violence, I could not stop looking at it.

Of course we have all seen violent and graphic action shots like this before. Photo Journalists in war zones or at the scene of major disasters often capture pictures that tell the story much better than the accompanying copy; however, something about this particular photo had a particularly strong effect on me. Nothing about it was predetermined. If a photographer arrives at the scene of an accident or is working in a war zone, they are somewhat prepared. They know a little about the kinds of things they will be photographing and the angles and lighting they need to deliver the goods; they are looking for the hero shot to make it to the front page. The photo taken in Notting Hill was the complete opposite of this. It is clear that someone has picked up their camera and clicked the button just in time and at the perfect moment. A second later and the attacker would have run past them and been out of the shot; the man with his leg out would have backed away and the police would have surrounded the victim, hiding him from vision.

For some unknown reason, no other news website was running this picture (ok maybe ninemsn had the rights to it) or a story about the stabbing. I spent about 20 minutes flicking between abc.net.au, news.com and channel 7 news but to no avail. I don’t usually praise ninemsn or talk up their reporting capabilities (considering most of the stuff on their site is gossip and hype) but I will give credit where credit is due: good job ninemsn. 

Here is the link to the story

http://news.ninemsn.com.au/glanceview/186223/stabbing-mars-london-carnival.glance

Reporting on the London Riots

Last week we were all shocked by the images coming out of London. Teenagers, young men and women and even children poured onto the streets to wreak havoc throughout the city. Pictures of smashed in shop windows, burning cars and buildings and police desperately trying to gain some sense of control of the rioting youth were streamed over the internet and our television screens.

I lived in London for almost three years, between 2006 and 2008, and was horrified when I heard my old neighborhood, Notting Hill, had been trashed by hundreds of rioters last Monday night. I was desperate for some news on exactly which streets and shops had been targeted but my search for information on all the major news sites gave me little to go on. As is typical for a news website, they simply gave me the basic headlines and information: Notting Hill trashed by rioters. No description of how much damage was done, which shops had been destroyed and how the people who lived and worked there were reacting.

Then, by chance, I came across this post by the Portobelloblogger who lives in Notting Hill and was walking through the suburb when the rioters attacked. The post is close to 2000 words long and gives a detailed description of everything that happened that night. The blogger traces their footsteps through the night, recounting the anxious mood that fell over the usually peaceful streets in anticipation of the rioters approach and the sad reality of the damage done once they had left.

I gained more information and insight into what happened that night from this one post then I did from the six other stories I read on official news sites. Online media does an excellent job at keeping us up to date with breaking stories and developments but when it comes to filling in the details there is often a severe lack of information. I have never followed a blog before or even viewed them as a legitimate source of information but this particular experience has forced me to consider the fact that bloggers are often writing about what they see and experience and nothing, not even a report on a major news site, can trump a primary source.

New Blog

The first post on my blog for Online Journalism.  Sorry if yor reading this, was forced to post it.

My twitter handle is @meaganl86