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Mass shooting and media essay
Mass shooting and media essay
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The Necessity of Truth: Censorship in Nora Ephron’s “The Boston Photographs” Originally published in 1975, Nora Ephron’s essay “The Boston Photographs” is both still relevant and controversial almost forty years later. It deals with the series of three photographs that were published in newspapers across the country. The most important one shows a mother and child falling off a collapsed fire escape. Both have their limbs outstretched. If both had survived, maybe the reaction would have been different. The child survived by landing miraculously on the mother, but the mother ended up dying. The question on everyone’s mind was why the photographer, Stanley Forman, decided to take the photographs instead of trying to help the falling mother and child. According to Ephron, “…the day the Boston photographs appeared, The Washington Post received over seventy calls in protest” (319). For that many people to pick up the phone and call, it shows that there was a justifiable reason for that to happen. The Post’s Charles Seib, the ombudsman at the time, while he was being interviewed, stated about the photographs: “They dramatically conveyed something that had happened, and that is the business we’re in. They were news…” (319). And the question remains, then: What should be or needs to be censored, if anything, from the public, especially when it deals with news? By the end, Nora Ephron agrees with their publication and the reasons for why they were printed instead of being censored for the public. I agree with her and believe that we must find out about tragedy if it happens, and it does in the world. Though it is unnecessary to have every news story be something tragic, those that are tragic also have their place in the news, and ar... ... middle of paper ... ...otograph by Carter. Like the reference to Vietnam, Carter took this photo—and many others—as a photojournalist documenting much of what was happening around war and Apartheid. He did his job well and did indeed take some “breathtaking pictures” of many things, and though many of them would “disturb readers,” in the words of Ephron, the work remains necessary and powerful. We need these photos in our lives to show us the truth, reveal the news as accurately as possible, and to show us a harrowing though artistic side to both beauty and tragedy and the world. Works Cited Ephron, Norah. “The Boston Photographs.” Crazy Salad and Scribble Scribble: Some Things About Women and Notes on Media. New York: Vintage, 2012. Print. Carter, Kevin. Untitled. March 1993. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Kevin-Carter-Child-Vulture-Sudan.jpg. Photograph. Online. 20 Feb. 2014.
Images can manipulate many scenarios but it’s tactic used to show the realities of our world. Despite what we see, picture taken of the war and events occurring in the war doesn’t mean they aren’t real. We all live in a messy world and history is constantly repeating itself. Pictures are taken to spread awareness and empathy. It is a reason DeGhett argued that the Iraq brunt solider photograph taken by Kenneth Jarecke should have been posted in order for the public to get a sense that the war occurring at the moment is nothing like in the movies. Images are powerful and we must learn to always look closely and
I glance amusedly at the photo placed before me. The bright and smiling faces of my family stare back me, their expressions depicting complete happiness. My mind drifted back to the events of the day that the photo was taken. It was Memorial Day and so, in the spirit of tradition my large extended family had gathered at the grave of my great grandparents. The day was hot and I had begged my mother to let me join my friends at the pool. However, my mother had refused. Inconsolable, I spent most of the day moping about sulkily. The time came for a group picture and so my grandmother arranged us all just so and then turned to me saying, "You'd better smile Emma or you'll look back at this and never forgive yourself." Eager to please and knowing she would never let it go if I didn't, I plastered on a dazzling smile. One might say a picture is worth a thousand words. However, who is to say they are the accurate or right words? During the 1930s, photographers were hired by the FSA to photograph the events of the Great Depression. These photographers used their images, posed or accurate, to sway public opinion concerning the era. Their work displayed an attempt to fulfill the need to document what was taking place and the desire to influence what needed to be done.
Despite the similarities in the two texts presented by the authors and photographers, their work is presented in two various ways. Agee and Evans project was done after living with three tenant families and Evans photographs are completely separate from Agees text. There are not any captions or names and they do not tell us where the photos are taken or who the people in the pictures are. Lange and Taylor’s project on the other hand is written in a way that helps us read the photographs and it is easier to see the connections between the text and pictures. The captions underneath the photos are based on words formulated by the people in the picture. However, the photos that do not have any people in them still have captions, but in this case we can assume that someone has told the photographer or author what to write for each photo. By this method the true meaning of how the turmoil during this period affected the people in question is more precisely illustrated because it includes the words uttered by the people thems...
...republication question for reporter: Is this information I would like to have if I were the enemy?” (PBS – Censorship par. 2). Big secrets were kept for years from its own people as well as from other countries such as the atom bomb and about the health of Franklin Roosevelt. The media and government encouraged families to write their loved ones about anything but the war. While “civil servants were reading and censoring a million pieces of mail weekly, especially those to or from POW’s and other internees” (PBS – Censorship par 7).
Nora Ephron wrote, “The Boston Photographs” to make her argument about how the media should be able to publish photographs of death. She used the Boston Photographs as her example. The photographs were taken by Stanley Forman. They were of a woman and a child falling from a fire escape. Readers thought the photos were disturbing and should not have been published. The photographs were taken by accident when the photographer thought the woman and child would be rescued. He turned away at the very last split-second before the woman fell to her death. There were a lot of criticism for the published photographs. Ephron thought that the photos were rightfully published and argued that the pictures were irrelevant to the woman 's
I keep my journal hidden; the script, the drawings, the color, the weight of the paper, contents I hope never to be experienced by another. My journal is intensely personal, temporal and exposed. When opening the leather bound formality of Alice Williamson's journal a framework of meaning is presupposed by the reader's own feelings concerning the medium. Reading someone else's diary can be, and is for myself, an voyeuristic invasion of space. The act of reading makes the private and personal into public. Yet, for Alice Williamson and many other female journalists of the Civil War period, the journal was creating a public memory of the hardship that would be sustained when read by others. The knowledge of the outside reader reading of your life was as important as the exercise of recording for one's self; creating a sense of sentimentality connecting people through emotions. (Arnold)
The mass media carries with it unparalleled opportunities to impart information, but also opportunities to deceive the public, by misrepresenting an event. While usually thought of as falsifying or stretching facts and figures, manipulation can just as easily be done in the use of photography and images. These manipulations may be even more serious – and subtle – than written manipulations, since they may not be discovered for years, if ever, and can have an indelible and lasting impact on the viewer, as it is often said, “a picture is worth a thousand words”. One of the most significant images of Twentieth Century America was the photograph of a migrant mother holding her child. The photograph was taken during the Great Depression by photographer Dorothea Lange, and has remained an enduring symbol of the hardship and struggle faced by many families during the Depression Era. This image was also an example of the manipulation of photography, however, for it used two major forms of manipulation that remain a problem in journalistic photography.
Bonila, Denise M., and Levy, Beth, Eds. The Power of the Press. H. W. Wilson, 1999.
Gilman, Charlotte Perkins. "The Yellow Wallpaper." Images of Woman in American Popular Culture. Ed. Angela G. Dorenkamp, et al. Port Worth: Harcourt Brace, 1995. 78-89.
Marrs, Suzanne. Eudora Welty(tm)s Photography: Images into Fiction. Critical Essays on Eudora Welty. W. Craig Turner and Lee Emling Harding. Boston, MA: G.K. Hall, 1989. 288-289.
Censorship has been a big part of the world’s history and especially America’s history. One of the most quoted amendments to the United States constitution is the first amendment; “Congress shall make no law…abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press ...” This amendment guaranteeing free speech, press, and religion is still heavily debated and contested today. Censorship, as a challenge to free speech and press has been allowed many times and has been heavily debated itself. Many people censor for many different reasons and in many different forms. Censorship itself is not always a bad thing and has in some cases been used for protection of the general population.
Exercising the freedom of speech has two sides: the speaker and the listener. Censorship is unfair to both sides. When it takes away the speaker’s Constitutional freedom of expression, it simultaneously revokes the listener’s right to develop an informed opinion based on unobstructed truth. This opinion has been supported by the courts. In 1982, an informal agreement between several broadcasters from major media outlets known as the Code of Broadcaster Conduct, which banned “depictions of sexual encounters, violence and drug use, as well as excessive advertising,” was nullified because it was a violation of First Amendment rights (“Broadcast Decency”). Excessive censorship is viewed as unnecessary by both the American public and by the government that endorses it.
Eisenstaedt’s photo reflects the elation that U.S. citizens felt after President Truman declared that World War II was over and they had won victory over Japan. The black and white coloration of the photo shows that this is an older, yet classic photo. Set in the heart of Times Square, this photo captivates the observer and captures a...
Protecting the Innocent: An essay on Censorship What would happen if anyone in the world could obtain access to potentially dangerous information? Should this “potentially dangerous” information be concealed? Throughout history, many people have argued over whether certain material and information should be kept confidential and the verdict remains unsolved to this day. Although it is widely disputed, censorship is vital because it protects children, reduces unnecessary awareness, and protects the military.
Newton, Julianne H. The Burden of Visual Truth: The Role of Photojournalism in Mediating Reality. Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2001. Print.