Larry D. Lauer

Much of what is reported about the world today is influenced, and many times actually shaped, by the compelling appeal of cameras and images. And more and more people every day get all of their news from the Internet, which is loaded with dramatic and abbreviated visual accounts of complex events.

Even the “look” of newspapers has changed because of the compelling power of television and other visual imagery. Large dramatic pictures and links to fast-paced video clips are appearing on or near front pages. And this has led to abbreviated and more dramatic styles of writing.

But when news is driven so consistently by imagery, how much can come through as straight reporting? Stop and think about it. When a camera frames a scene, nothing outside that frame exists to the audience. Close-ups direct attention to what the producer/reporter wants audiences to see, not what they might look around and see if they were there. Editing adds drama. Cameras follow or “track” events as they unfold,  adding more drama. And creating “montages” out of selected separate images produces a truly unique, “cinema only” reality.

Films and videos always give people the feeling that they “saw it with their own eyes,” and therefore it must be true. But a small riot often looks like an entire city is coming apart. And neighborhood  disturbances can look like an entire country is in revolt. News events become a producer’s  cinematic version of the situation, and often will not convey events as their audiences would see them. It is not uncommon for people to report that a video story they saw about an event they actually attended did not accurately depict that event at all!

Endless daily dramatic imagery edited to compete for attention can lead to confusion and even misunderstanding. Thus, in today’s digital world people must first become their own editors, and then take all these cinematic influences into account as they strive to understand what’s really going on.