Careful Attention to Detail

            On February 5, Fox’s own Suzanne Venker published an online article titled “To be happy, we must admit women and men aren't 'equal'”.[1] While a writer and social critic, Suzanne is best known for her role as a “dedicated family woman”. This role as mother and wife has certainly influenced her writing. According to Venker herself, “[women] are happiest and most satisfied when they reject the feminist creed and embrace their femininity.” Some of her works include How to Choose a Husband (And Make Peace With Marriage), The War on Men, The Flipside of Feminism, and 7 Myths of Working Mothers. Many of her works are no stranger to controversy and criticism, so it is no surprise that a recent piece, “To be happy, we must admit women and men aren't 'equal'” stirred up quite a buzz.

            Although, this time the criticism wasn’t so much about the concept as it was the presentation. In Venker’s article, she critiques aspects of feminism and the feminist movement as well as emphasizes the importance of marriage, specifically heterosexual marriage. This view alone is substantial to create online chaos. Amusingly, to accompany her utterly closed-minded argument about heterosexual marriage and heteronormativity, Venker included a picture of a lesbian couple.

The shrewd woman who first noticed this mistake was feminist author and blogger Jessica Valenti. Valenti first posted about Fox’s mishap on her blog saying:

Shhhh…no one tell Fox News that the “wedding kiss” picture they’re using to accompany a piece about traditional gender roles is actually of a same sex couple. (MADE MY DAY)[2]

Valenti’s post helped spread this key detail throughout the news and blogosphere. The story caught like wildfire spreading from sites like the Alaska Dispatch and the Huffington Post, to mommy and feminist blogs and of course, Gawker. The subject material, being so controversial in and of itself, paired with a depiction of a homosexual couple is a time bomb waiting to explode. Many sites took advantage of the chance to point out Fox’s lack of reliability and inattention to detail.

At first look, the photo could be easily perceived as a man and woman rather than two women. This is even more evident seeing that it took 3 whole days to notice the distinction. But this cannot suffice as an excuse for Fox News. The photo used was no regular photo. In fact, the picture is of the couple on their wedding day. Lela McArthur and Stephanie Figarelle were the first same-sex couple to tie the knot at the top of the Empire State Building, soon after New York legalized gay marriage. 

Whereas, Venker’s usual reactions are analytical, most sites that responded didn’t take her post nor her picture to accompany her post very seriously. Gawker stated, “Of course, she's talking about her belief that women should stop trying to compete with men and just give in to the fact that they were put on earth to be a wife and mother and nothing more. But looking at the photo of Stephanie Figarelle and Lela McArthur lovingly sharing their first kiss as a legally married couple, you can't help but smile.”[3] MSN stated, “Come on Fox, everyone knows if you're going to be lazy and pick a photo that totally undermines your story, you have to pick something a little more obscure.”[4] It is also interesting to note that no comments are allowed on Venker’s post. Again, this cannot be simply because Venker is a controversial writer, as one of her other pieces published on Fox News “Four things Jane Austen teaches us about love” has commenting capabilities. Seeing how abundant the reactions were without any commentary available, I can only imagine what it would be like with it. 

Fox’s photo mishap reflects poorly on their validity and reliability as a news source. The story was on spread to a vast amount of sites, each directed toward different audiences. For people who were never skeptical of Venker’s writing or Fox News may now be questioning their reasoning and for all who already have preconceived notions of Fox’s validity and reliability are just reinforced. On the other hand, the argument can be made that the reaction to this picture incident was similar to a publicity stunt. Regardless of the fact that Fox is being portrayed in a “bad light”, people are indeed talking about, analyzing and criticizing Fox, nevertheless increasing their exposure.

While the blogosphere was quick to catch this incident, Fox was just as quick to remove it. What now remains are two “restroom-esque” figures of a man and a woman. Overall, the damage is done and the picture replacement does not validate nor improve the original story.

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[1] http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2013/02/05/to-be-happy-must-admit-women-and-men-arent-equal/

[2] http://jessicavalenti.tumblr.com/

[3] http://gawker.com/5982945/fox-news-accidentally-uses-photo-of-same+sex-couple-to-illustrate-article-about-the-importance-of-heterosexual-marriage

[4] http://now.msn.com/fox-news-uses-photo-of-lela-mcarthur-and-stephanie-figarelle-wedding-in-pro-heterosexual-article

LIAR LIAR

In his article, “Liar, Liar, Pants on Fire” Errol Morris says:

But photographs are neither true nor false in and of themselves. They are only true or false with respect to statements that we make about them or the questions that we might ask of them.

Morris began his article refuting an old saying “a picture is worth 1,000 words”. I was quite skeptical of this statement seeing that I never question the validity of the phrase; I had always accepted it to be true.

Morris then presented a black and white image of a dated ship. I then started to understand what he meant because if I had to write a 1,000 word essay on that boat I would definitely be pulling my hair out after 200. Some pictures are worth 1,000 words but Morris proves some are not.

He also states:

All alone — shorn of context, without captions — a photograph is neither true nor false.

When Morris gave a storyline (context) to the picture of the Lustiana, I immediately understood what he meant by a picture means nothing without context. I immediately formed the black and white image of the Lustiana from bland to sad and depressing. After all, now knowing the context, this picture depicts a ship that tragically drowned taking thousands of people with it. 

The above image a normal 1^st grade picture right? What makes this picture important? Is it my 1^st grade class photo? How do you know?

Doesn’t the kid in the second row, second from the left look innocent? Normal? Does anything about him seem murderous?

Without a caption, it would be hard to know just what to think of this photo.

The child in the white turtleneck is actually Adam Lanza. Now I don’t need to go into much detail but Adam Lanza is now infamous for his part in killing 27 people at Sandy Hook Elementary School, 28 including his mother, which he killed at home.

Maybe upon first look you though the image was sweet, or maybe it gave you memories of your own childhood picture days.

Regardless, it is without a doubt that most of you will now think differently of the picture above given the context. This proves Morris’s assumption that a picture is nothing without context.  

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photo credit to PBS's Frontline 
http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/social-issues/raising-adam-lanza/slideshow-adam-lanzas-path-to-the-sandy-hook-tragedy/

Taking an Approach

Harris defines his 4^th step of Rewriting as ‘taking an approach’ in which a writer is working in the mode of another writer. One example he gives of one artist taking an approach of another artist is a cover song. The song isn’t meant to simply repeat it but reinterpret it with a new and different meaning. Harris gives 3 separate steps to describe ‘taking an approach’.

The first step is to acknowledge influences. Take the time to explain to your audience where your ideas or motive to write this piece came from. The focus should be on the way a writer is thinking and writing rather than the writer herself.

The second step is to turn an approach on itself. Kind of confusing but the gist is to ask the same questions of a writer that she asked of others.

The third and last step of ‘taking an approach’ is called reflexivity. In this step, the writer is expected to note the key choices she made in constructing her text.

I believe Harris’ rewriting step ‘taking an approach’ is much more common in academic and leisure writing than in news writing. News stories, or blog posts for that matter, may change their tone for audience but it’s uncommon for a news site to introduce their story with a different story that stated their train of thought. News is just usually too relevant for someone to cite where they ‘got their influences’. For instance, talking about the Chris Dorner story, hardly anyone is beginning their stories by citing or giving credit to the story that made them want to write their own. I just don’t believe taking an approach is very applicable to news stories.

I also don’t think it is very common for a news writer to use reflexivity. News writing isn’t very structured. The most important and interesting information is presented first, on purpose, and very rarely to writers comment on themselves and their decisions in the writing process. Again, very common in academic writing but not much elsewhere.

On the other hand, it may be easier to find in a blog considering that the ideas in blogs are much less likely (than news) to be headline stories. I could come up with COUNTLESS examples of taking an approach in academic writing.

✌out