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Old 12-05-2011, 02:57 PM   #25
kewms
Join Date: Aug 2002
Posts: 1,318
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Re: Terry Dobson's Training History

Quote:
Janet Rosen wrote: View Post
Exactly.
I once had a young adult during the fairly early days of our war on Iraq tell me that the newspaper is unbiased.
After I stopped laughing, I said, ok: let's select a photo of an olive skinned person with dark hair in green fatigues carrying a gun. Let's further posit that it was taken in Iraq. Among the captions the editor might select to describe the photo are...Terrorist - Armed insurgent- Patriot- Freedom fighter - Rebel- Militia member - Not to mention father of four, pissed off unemployed oil rig worker, doctor trying to get to his hospital....

Objective truth is, this man was there at this time and (if witnessed) had just done this thing. All else is the framing of narrative.
As is the decision to publish that particular photo in the first place, as opposed to a different photo of the same person sitting and drinking coffee, or a similar photo of an olive-skinned American soldier, or a photo of an olive-skinned female in civilian clothing.

And these are decisions by journalists, who (mostly) have training in objective reporting and (mostly) consciously try to be aware of and compensate for their own biases and those of their sources. Read the diaries of ordinary people involved in news-making events and you'll get yet a different view.

Katherine
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