Whatever, Bob.
Without wanting to come across like Mafud:
1) At what point did this thread become about journalism? Your
argument is built around a journalism strawman.
2) What this thread started out as (at least for me) was a
distaste for someone trying to make 50 grand (the amount isn't
really germaine) off of someones misfortune. No journalistic
integrity is involved in an eBay auction.
3) For the record, I am not a motorsport follower, and had not
heard of Dale Earnhardt(?) prior to his untimely demise.
4) This is not about journalism, it is about greed.
William Robb
----- Original Message -----
From: "Bob Walkden" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
To: "William Robb" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>
Sent: April 26, 2001 1:57 AM
Subject: Re[4]: $50K for 8 negatives at ebay
> Hi,
>
> my purpose in using these examples is that they too are no
longer
> journalism. Just as the crash photos _were_ journalism a few
weeks
> ago, so Pliny's writing _was_ journalism in 79AD, and
Salgado's photos
> in the mid-1980s.
>
> Now they're not, they're history, like the crash photos, and
when
> published now they are published in the context of
entertainment -
> Salgado occupies the same shelves as La Chappelle and Araki,
Pliny the
> same shelves as Ovid.
>
> At what point do they cease to be journalism, and apparently
not
> subject to cries of 'Exploitation!', and move into some
condition
> where they _are_ open to such cries?
>
> To give another example: the 1st published photos of the
crashed Air
> France Concorde were not particularly good photos, but they
were good
> enough while the news was hot. A few weeks later, after the
heat had
> gone out of the news, another photo appeared which is
aesthetically
> far better, and got a lot of coverage as well as earning a lot
of
> money for the photographer. Its additional news value, as far
as I can
> tell, was nil. There were no cries of exploitation from
anybody on
> this site - rather there were gasps of admiration for the
aesthetic
> qualities of the picture.
>
> It seems to me that people are not opposed to the exploitation
of
> these photos, but are instead shocked for 2 reasons: first, at
the use
> of eBay as a medium for trying to sell them, and 2nd because
the crash
> victim was well-known to them and in some way important in
their lives.
>
> If instead of being Dale Earnhardt (apologies if I have his
name spelt
> wrong) it had been a sportsman you'd never heard of, in a
sport that
> was little-known in the US, I don't believe your reactions
would have
> been the same. I think the Concorde example, where the victims
were
> anonymous to you, supports this view.
>
> Furthermore, if the photographer had successfully hawked them
around the
> agencies nobody here would have given them a moment's
consideration. But
> in both cases he's trying to earn money by capitalising on the
celebrity
> of the victim, which makes him no different to any of the
staff or freelance
> journalists (print, TV, photo or sketchpad) who cover tragic
events, or any
> member of the public who gets lucky with their camera.
>
-
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