PressEthic

On the New York Times website a heartbreaking story about the sexual abuse of African children was posted today. The issue has an article and a video with beautiful pictures with a voiceover. The video is ten and a half minutes long and includes a series of pictures that coordinate with the voice of the narrator and what is going on in the story. A different person wrote the related article, did the voiceover and took the pictures with is interesting to me from the perspective of immersion journalism. This is not an objective story; the narrator repeats over and over the fact that "it is real violence and should be known by the world." I am fascinated by this photojournalistic storytelling and the video makes it so intriguing. It is no different than any other story of child abuse except for the fact that these the abusers are rarely punished. Child abusers in America are deemed as disgusting human beings but unfortunately in Africa some of the children are being blamed for being sexually assaulted. Files are lost, doctors and police lie to the children by telling them they have to have money to get an exam to prove the rape or what's wrong their parents don't want to hear it. In the video we see several pictures of the children that the narrator talks about and if this is the way companies are going to be advancing I am thrilled. There is no way anyone could miss the message or not feel personally affected. Journalism is supposed to convey news and tell the world what is going on from day to day but I think there is more value in trying to excite passion in an issue. This multi-media representation of stories really has my attention.