The front page of today's Daily Mirror is a horribly poignant picture of a child weeping from hunger to illustrate its story on food banks in Britain. It's a real picture of a real child, but it was taken in San Francisco in 2009. It's not a fake, then. But is it a lie?
Well, your first clue is
that it’s in the ‘Mirror’, Andrew…
For most people this isn't a question worth asking. They'll answer it, of course, but their answers will actually be to a rather different question: do they feel morally outraged by the benefit reforms? If yes, then obviously the picture is true in every sense that matters.
Ah. ‘Fake, but accurate’, then? Tell me, how'd that work out for
Dan Rather?
There is one final twist. If you go to the Flickr page from which the picture was lifted, it turns out that the little girl, the photographer's daughter, is not crying because she is hungry at all. She is crying because an earthworm she had befriended spurned her advances and wriggled away. And the really awful lesson of the Mirror's front page is that we belong to a species more easily moved to tears by the escape of a pet earthworm than by children we don't know going hungry in places we take care not to see.
It would have been far more poignant if she'd been weeping for the debasement of modern journalism, wouldn't it?
No, the message is that an earthworm - or any slimy, invertebrate creature for that matter - is superior to the likes of Andrew Brown and anyone who reads the Guardian.
ReplyDeleteA child from the underclass going hungry is more likely to look like a ghetto lobster than the bawling waif.
The MSM is only going to get worse. Circulations are on the slide, which means less money, but rather than fighting back and actually, you know, getting stories*, they just keep doing cheaper and cheaper things. Which means less revenue.
ReplyDeleteMeanwhile, the likes of Guido Fawkes are doing their job with 3 people.
* Whatever you think of the Daily Mail, they do actually go out and get original stories. If you're going to fill a newspaper with comment and reprinted press releases, don't be surprised if people don't buy it.
Abortion is just fine and dandy though . We all can agree on that and still be caring "human " beings .
ReplyDelete"A child from the underclass going hungry is more likely to look like a ghetto lobster than the bawling waif."
ReplyDeleteThat was probably the giveaway!
"The MSM is only going to get worse. "
I'd not have thought that possible. But...
"Abortion is just fine and dandy though . We all can agree on that and still be caring "human " beings ."
Indeed so... :(