Hunt Is on for Dramatic Tsunami Pictures

[arcos]

Hunt Is on for Dramatic Tsunami Pictures

NEW YORK - Besides grateful relatives, tourists returning from Asian countries struck by the killer tsunami are likely to be met by news agency representatives hunting for video of the cataclysmic event.

"There will still be, I think, the definitive shot, the wall of water," Sandy MacIntyre, director of news for Associated Press Television News in London, said Monday.

American TV networks have been rushing reporters and camera crews to countries affected by the disaster. As they cover the aftermath, there's also an intense effort to find video of the event as it happened, to convey the awesome power of the natural phenomenon.

APTN is competing fiercely with another news agency, Reuters, to acquire video. APTN producers were sent to six airports in Europe and Asia on Monday to ask tourists if they had captured the scene on their home video cameras, MacIntyre said.

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http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/living/people/10508678.htm?1c

[AuntiBush]

1. Reminds one of the Roadside...

accidents. We all slow down, but don't like admitting it. This was one very, very sad catastropic event. Sadly, our need for imagery will overwhelm the lives lost.

[Renew Deal]

2. I think this is more important than that.

This is about understanding nature and it's power/fury. This sort of thing can happen to (almost) anyone without warning. I think that's whats unique about it.

[Baclava]

12. The media will find a way to trivialize it...

"Big Fucking Wave Kills Shitload of People"

[hlthe2b]

4. If the imagery will help them get an early warning system....

then, I'm all for it. No matter how gruesome. Just as with war, the public needs to know the reality of not being prepared for this kind of thing.

[madaboutharry]

3. This says a lot about the decline of

our humanity.

[matt819]

7. You're right, of course

It is shameful that these days it so often boils down to what someone's willing to pay for something someone else has, and if that's tragedy, that's fine (heck, even better).

This tragedy is truly astounding, and it really puts into context the travest of we have created in Iraq. Indeed, we no longer have the resources, financial or human, to provide the support that is much needed for tsunami victims, rebuilding, etc. And, as I posted elsewhere, what funding this there is almost certainly going to go to red state companies for contracts in South Asia and the Pacific.

[steely]

5. There had to have been a aircraft aloft with some lucky devil...

with camera ready -

[spanone]

6. It's Showbiz folks.

[Prisoner_Number_Six]

8. That's not it at all.

It's a way for the common man to become a bit closer to the crisis, and perhaps understand it a little better- I'm sitting here all safe and snug, and the figure "23,000 dead" makes no real connection. A picture of a 40' wall of water bearing down on a village would help in our understanding- our connection to what's going on.

It's the exact reason the * cabal doesn't want you to see pictures of the war- the potential cannon fodder recruit would be far less willing to sign on if they're personally aware of what they're getting in to. Up-close visual images are the most powerful things in the world.

[ThoughtCriminal]

9. Tsunamis generally do not look like Hollywood depictions

Rather than a wall of water, it's more like a rapidly rising tide. More resemblance to a flood rather than a huge breaking wave. Some of the video I've seen today is frighteningly impressive though.

[whirlygigspin]

10. Try Chinese TV

they have a total death count now of 85,000
and are showing some gruesome video.

[spinbaby]

13. A mountain of water

One clip I saw in TV showed destruction in the foreground and a mountain of water out at sea.

[Ima]

11. photos Bay of Bengal

Click on the photos to really appreciate them.


http://www.pbase.com/issels/phuket_tsunami&page=1

[pinniped]

14. Tsuami animation.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/object/article?f=/news/archive/2004/12/27/international2226EST0660.DTL&o=1

[Voltaire99]

15. "Lookee! See that?" US media cooking up another Disaster Burger.

"...there's also an intense effort to find video of the event as it happened, to convey the awesome power of the natural phenomenon."

Ha ha! Piss off!

The "hunt is on," all right. The hunt is on for sensation for the jaded TV crowd, the same umbilical glazed-over pack who drool over Best Home Tornado Videos and all the jaw-dropping coverage on the Weather Channel.

Everyone likes disaster footage, especially when it involves foreigners. Show Americans footage of US soldiers wasted in Iraq, or even coming home in coffins, however, and these same gawkers go apeshit about what's "appropriate" and "tasteful."

So enough about "conveying the awesome power of the natural phenomenon." Out on the big home screens of Jesusland, they want to see storms piling brown corpses on the beaches. A delicious Disaster Burger gets a tickle up in their fat-cemented synapses; it's just the thing for the holiday doldrums.

[SodoffBush]

16. Well said

and so it goes...

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

17. Don't overlook the wonderful fact that they are mostly

brown people who died. In Jesusland, they don't count. Even if a large number of them were Christians... it don't matter.

[durablend]

18. "World's Deadliest Natural Disasters"...

Coming in March on FOX.

(now watch them actually do it)

:puke:

[uppityperson]

19. We're all looking for a way to understand this

Pictures help. This is why I clicked on this story and why you probably did too. This was a huge disaster and pictures willhelp us understand and be able to cope with it. So what if most of the people who died are brown. Are you saying that we shouldn't try to understand what happened to them, to ignore this and just go on with consuming things and celebrating new years eve by watching whatever sports is on tv? Yes the media will use pictures to lure viewers in. So what. Use these pictures wisely to figure out that this is much much much worse than 3000 people dieing. Sorry for the rant, please look at this as we do need to get pictures out to cope and understand and, without the media publishing them, most people wouldn't see them (many people aren't internets savy). I want these pictures to be front page, along with the Iraq invasion dead.

[uppityperson]

20. Record donations by individuals prompted by pictures they've seen

Record amounts are being given to organizations involved with the aftermath. People are responding to the pictures that have gotten out. BBC says that donations started low and each dramatically increased in amount after pictures were published. So, aside from the fact that you can't tell the media how to use them, this is good.