 Let's look at four catastrophic events: the riots in
France, Belgium and Germany, the recent earthquake in Pakistan,
Hurricane Katrina and the Gulf Wars. We've all watched the news about
them and many of us were saddened by the scenes. To repeat the sentence:
We've all WATCHED the news about them. Horrific scenes repeating the "best"
parts over and
over, sad music in the background, a sad expression on the anchorman's
face
- these features were common to all of them.
Paris: A scene showing a van on fire at night, and (probably) a
shopping center surrounded by huge flames climbing up to the sky…
Pakistan: Views of destroyed buildings supported by
Lux Aeterna (the soundtrack of "A Requiem for a Dream") or some unknown
aria…
New Orleans: Aerial shots from a helicopter,
showing people trying to survive on the roofs of flooded buildings,
African-Americans shouting at bureaucrats and civil servants…
Kuwait: A helpless bird trying to fly despite its
wings being caught in the oil slick covering the waters of the Persian
Gulf… Iraqis demolishing a monument of Saddam Hussein… Rockets flying in
the dark sky and buildings exploding in the heart of Baghdad…
All of these shocked the many people who watched them on
TV. Everything seems all right until someone whispers a "spoiler" in
your ear: the bird struggling in the slick had never seen the Persian
Gulf. It had never touched its waters. That scene, so closely identified
with the first Gulf War, was actually shot in France, after a cargo ship
crash. Thus, the most famous scene of the first Gulf War is unreal,
related to the war in the same way Jamie Foxx is related to Ray Charles,
Mel Gibson to William Wallace, or Russell Crowe to Jim Braddock.
Today, a news broadcast is hardly different from a music
video or a movie. It's primary purpose is not to bring you the truth (of
course, it can also be questioned if this is even possible or not), but
to attract your attention through dramatization and sensationalism. Even
the arrangement of the news stories can influence the feeling they give
to the viewer.
The technique of scattering older shots in a news story is
not used only by large media companies. I did it myself while working as
a montage trainee at a local TV station. Believe me, no one can detect
the difference. The only purpose of this technique is to change an
ordinary event into something people will talk about.
If the news, our primary source for knowledge about
current events, is a professional creation--a combination of theatrical
expressions on an anchorman's face, suitable music and selected scenes--what
makes them more real than a movie "based on a true story"? The title?
Moreover, what makes you believe the things I said about that famous
bird scene?
Ýsmail O. Postalcýoðlu (POLS/III)
ismail_orhan@yahoo.com
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