Opinion

New Pictures

By SCOTT T. HARDS

A few weeks ago I purchased a new video camera. I have a two-year old daughter, and this is a modern appliance that no loving parent can be without! These days, it seems like just about everybody owns one. Almost every night there are scenes on the TV news of accidents or other events that were taken by private individuals with their camcorders: A hijacked airliner crashes into the sea near Africa and a vacationing couple has it on videotape. An out-of-control freighter smashes into a dock in New Orleans and a shopper has it on videotape. A small stunt plane crashes during an airshow in the U.S. and somebody has it on videotape.

But there's a problem here. All of these pictures from video cameras are changing the news itself. They are dramatically affecting which stories TV stations choose to report. When you see these scenes on evening TV shows, be sure to ask yourself this question: Am I seeing this picture because this is news, or am I seeing this news because of this picture?

After all, a small plane crashing in the U.S. has no effect on the daily lives of people living in Japan. If the TV station didn't have footage of the crash, it wouldn't even bother reporting a story like that: the picture makes the news. Putting scenes like these together into special programs is fine, but it doesn't seem to me that they should be cluttering up a standard news broadcast.

This trend has made me wonder about the fundamental value of TV news, as compared to that in newspapers or on the radio. Have you ever noticed how often you see the characters for "file" ("shi-ryo" in Japanese) on the TV screen during a news show? That means that the pictures you are seeing are just decoration ― they are not directly related to the story currently being reported.

And even if these images are not file, they are often just scenes of buildings where a crime happened, or shots of politicians talking ― not very important in terms of understanding the news. In fact, I have listened to a 6 p.m. NHK radio news program, and then watched the 7 p.m. NHK-TV news an hour later, and noticed that the script being read was exactly the same on TV as on the radio broadcast. In other words, the pictures being shown on TV were completely unnecessary from the standpoint of reporting the news.

So that's why I find myself depending more these days on the newspaper and the Internet for news. You can get the news exactly when you need it, it is objective and there aren't any pointless pictures.

Shukan ST: March 14, 1997

(C) All rights reserved