Journalism as predation
There’s an interesting story up over at Slate; it’s a reprint of a discussion about the photographer Jill Greenberg and the nature of photography in general. After discussing the illegality of child pornography, the author notes that
This is as it should be, for many reasons; but one of them is simply that photography is, in its essence, a form of predation, and its being so transforms the meaning of the scenes it shows. The power of the photographer over his or her subject is immense, and not just because one can manipulate the other, or even because one acquires and owns an image of the other.
I can’t think of a better summary of journalism than that. A journalist can take any subject and make them seem vile or praiseworthy. Take Matt Labash’s (ridiculously awesome) recent piece on Dick Cheney, for example. Cheney is, probably, the most hated politician in America. But if you read Labash’s piece, you come away thinking “Hey, that guy’s not so bad.” Imagine if that piece had been written by someone more antipathetic to the Vice President; imagine, say, Andrew Sullivan writing that piece. It probably would have ended with a trout being airboarded.
My point is this: Journalism is, I think, fundamentally untrustworthy, at least as far as long, feature-type pieces are concerned. Quotes are too easily found, edited, and manipulated to be considered “real”: real thoughts, real opinions, real facts. I loved reading The New Yorker’s coverage from China, but as I noted to a friend currently living in the People’s Republic, I had no idea what to make of the truthiness within. There are so many subcultures in that massive country that a decent reporter could have found anyone to say anything. (See: the piece on how the Chinese love national greatness conservatism.) Odds are that 75% of the story is written beforehand; the journalist was just looking for quotes to fit into his worldview/preconceived notions. I’ll probably be accused of projecting my own weakness as a writer/reporter into this post, but I think it’s worth considering just how much reporting you read is real real, and how much is fake real, simply done for appearance’s sake.