Week 12: Photojournalism: The best of both worlds.

1) Find a photojournalistic news story from any newspaper or magazine and answer the following questions:

a)                  Why did you choose this news over others?

I choose this news because I feel that this news is very persuasive and the visual image attracts me for the first sight. It was reported that thousands of lives and millions of pounds were lost needlessly because of a "dangerous delay" in the response to the East Africa famine. The international community has failed to take decisive action on early warnings, which caused a six-month setback in the relief effort. The report found out the leading aid agencies took time to spend money on those in need, resulting them have now hit out at governments and humanitarian organizations. According to Oxfam and Save the Children, who compiled the review, this is mainly because many donors wanted proof of a humanitarian catastrophe before launching action to prevent one. A Dangerous Delay showed this only came when media coverage reached particularly high levels. Chief executive of Oxfam, Barbara Stocking, said "We all bear responsibility for this dangerous delay that cost lives in East Africa and need to learn the lessons of the late response. It's shocking that the poorest people are still bearing the brunt of a failure to respond swiftly and decisively. We know that acting early saves lives but collective risk aversion meant aid agencies were reluctant to spend money until they were certain there was a crisis."

b)                  Is the narrative component of the story necessary or is the picture enough to express the intended message of the news?

For this news, I think the picture is already enough to express the intended message of the news. However, e narrative also plays a role in the story to anchoring the picture. If the picture stands for itself, audiences may think that it was just another common picture of famine in Africa, but when they read the story they know how bad the issue is as they hardly get the fund from the leading aid agencies.

c)                  Did the picture and writings capture the “truth” of the event?

The picture and writings did capture the “truth” of the event, as we already know the situation in Africa, famine in this case particularly.

References:

Belfast telegraph. (2012). Late Famine Response 'Cost Lives'.