Gyllenhaal’s Nightcrawler Movie isn’t the Future of Journalism — it’s the Reality!
British audiences likely consider the new Jake Gyllenhaal movie Nightcrawler a foreign concept — but they’re wrong. (Click here for the movie premise.)
Explicit news content, particularly following the if it bleeds it leads mentality, and particularly produced by non-affiliated ‘citizen journalists’, is not just the future of UK journalism but the current reality.
UK readers will counter that:
The premise of the film —a rogue individual with a low-budget video camera capturing horrific crime scenes in explicit bloody detail, even with pixelated faces to protect victim identity — is flawed because no UK TV station shows such images.
An estimated 1.5–4 million CCTV cameras (1 camera for every 11 or 14 of our 64.1 million population) operate in the UK. Not only would speeding through the urban centers in a red sports car trigger a number of speed cameras, but lying to the police about your vehicle’s whereabouts surrounding crime scenes would certainly arouse suspicion and be quickly disproven with CCTV footage.
The first point is the most intriguing about UK journalism — both now and where we’re headed.
Pressure to publish
It’s true the UK has not had the same appetite for and exposure to graphic crime-scene images (particularly of victims and the deceased) as, say, South Africa or Mexico, where violent crime is more prevalent, or even compared to the US (recall the graphic crime scene photos of victims broadcast during the OJ Simpson trial).
But more recently, traditional UK media has been under twin pressures to broadcast and publish increasingly explicit images:
- People are seeing graphic images of a news item on the internet and across social media — so expect traditional media to keep up.
- Traditional media is in crisis so is increasingly trying to replicate the editorial approaches of Buzzfeed and Vice News.
Social media made us do it!
The horrific crash of commercial Malaysian Airlines MH17 in Russian-occupied Ukraine, which became an unsecured crime scene, is a recent example of images of corpses and other disturbing images being captured and shared on social media.
Some would regard this as ‘citizen journalism’ — I regard it as ghoulish voyeurism, unethical, insensitive and unnecessary. National tabloid, The Mirror published a photo of wreckage on pages 2–3 the day after the crash and before victim identities had been released. Limbs and clothing were visible that, to those who knew them, would have identified the victims.
For me, this is a hideous editorial decision and not dissimilar to those of Rene Russo’s TV producer character in Nightcrawler, who fears that without increasingly gruesome images her station’s audience will wander elsewhere for their voyeuristic fix. And her job is on the block.
UK TV stations chose to broadcast mobile phone footage showing Michael Adebolajo, including his bloodied hands still holding the hatchet used to brutally murder fusilier Lee Rigby in Woolwich, London, moments after the attack.
While distressing, personally I feel this is a sound editorial decision (though debatable as to whether Adebolajo’s audio — of him explaining his actions as politically motivated — should have been included as this gave his views the national platform he wanted).
Interestingly, Ofcom (UK broadcast regulator) cleared broadcasters in using the footage, partially because mobile phone footage of the incident had been “widely disseminated via social media”.
Follow the trail of ‘what’s been published online should be disseminated by mainstream media’ and we’re not only outsourcing journalistic ethics to those that have none, but it’s a race toward a gruesome outlier.
Vice News — and beyond?
Vice News describes itself as “an international news organization created by and for a connected generation” that provides “an unvarnished look at some of the most important events of our time”.
Perhaps positioned as the ‘middle ground’ between unvetted, unverified open-sourced ‘news’ content surfaced across social media, and traditional news organisations struggling for a raison d’être in the digitally disrupted ‘new normal’.
I personally think VICE News’ coverage, particularly that of journalist and filmmaker Medyan Dairieh who achieved unrivaled access to Islamic State (IS) — (three weeks embedded) - has been phenomenal.
But the content can be graphic — heads displayed on spikes in the IS documentary, for example — and shown without viewer warning. Another example is the inclusion of a video showing what appears to be police brutality in extremis: El Paso Releases Video of Cop Executing Handcuffed Man — Where’s the Anger?
Is this just more daring journalism — willing to show a new generation the horrific reality of events around the world — or click-chasing for the Darwin Awards generation?
Is there a place for ‘Horror Porn’ in journalism?
In an insightful article by Jim Lewis on Slate.com he wrote:
“Pictures of extreme violence are always a kind of pornography” and concluded that “shock overwhelms information every time.”
A fear is that not only will journalism loosen its standards to compete with online clicks and make a commodity of gore-drenched suffering, but that we lose our humanity — rather than telling stories that touch our humanity.
For me, the line divides between suffering disseminated as awareness and information (ideally as a function of a socio-political consciousness) and (real) suffering displayed as entertainment.
Perhaps this is what we should ask before publishing:
- Is this image central to understanding the news story? i.e. Can the story be told without reveling in ‘horror porn’ or — as in some war reportage, is it necessary.
- Will this image cause hurt and suffering to the victim and/or their family? And does this outweigh the point above?
What else would you add to the questions we should ask before publishing/broadcasting?
Please do leave comments so we can debate this important issue further. If you found this post interesting, it would mean a lot to me if you could hit the Recommend button too. Thanks!
Anna Lawlor is a journalist, content creator and director of Social i Media. She loves to debate all things media-related. Get in touch via www.Social-i-Media.co.uk or on Twitter: @Little_Lawlor
