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http://www.omniture.com --> Sections Home Page Local News AP News AP Entertainment Archives Business Classifieds Event Calendar Forums Life Opinion Obituaries Photo Gallery Readers Photo Gallery Sports Tempo Weather Special Coverage 2006 Britt Festivals --> Shop Our Valley AutoFinder HomeFinder JobFinder Search Our Valley Special Sections Distinctly Northwest Readers' Choice Homelife Magazine Joy Magazine Holiday Guide Oregon Golf Info Oregon Wine Info Other Publications Local Links Ashland News eSouthernOregon Newspapers In Education Personals Moving Here Movie Listings TV Listings Volunteer Customer Service Advertise With Us Media Kit Place Classified Ad Contact Us FAQ's Home Delivery Site Map --> Email Story to a Friend January 7, 2007 Instant gratification Life in a camera phone world The mainstream media got it wrong in the hanging of Saddam Hussein, Dennis Dunleavy says. The hits to such sites as YouTube, Google, and Liveleak, all of which posted explicit video of the dictator's death, testify to that. "They didn't foresee the possibility of somebody standing there with a camera phone, and that would be more popular than the mainstream coverage," says Dunleavy, who teaches photojournalism at Southern Oregon University. "There was so much restraint, so much fear that they would offend, they backed off from what people wanted to see. They (mainstream media) showed leading up to the death, but not the death." The execution, the news coverage, the Internet postings and the controversy swirling around the events suggest the rough contours of what Dunleavy and others say is an emerging new world of media imagery in a digital age. While nobody knows just what that world will look like, some questions are already clear. One of the chief questions is: Can you believe what you see? Which also happens to be the title of a forum coming up Wednesday at Southern Oregon University. The question is a nod to the popularity of software such as Photoshop, which makes it possible for anybody with a little training to inject subjects into photographs that weren't there, to remove material that was in the photo, or to alter images in innumerable ways. Advertisement Subtitled "The Impact of Integrity of News Media Images in the Digital Age," the Thomas W. Pyle First Amendment Forum will have Dunleavy as its moderator and a panel comprising national award-wining news photographer David Burnett, Oregonian Photo Editor Mike Davis and Mail Tribune photographer and Photo Editor Bob Pennell. In connection with the forum, photographs by Burnett and Dunleavy will be on display in the Schneider Museum of Art through Feb. 24 in an exhibit curated by Josine Ianco-Starrels. Dunleavy sees a media environment in which questions like those attached to the video of the Saddam Hussein execution will come increasingly to the fore. "Everything is 'on' with a capital O," he says, referring to a society in which millions of camera phones stand ready to capture seemingly any event. "When this stuff breaks, a million viewers have sought it out," he says. "They're not turning on the TV, they're seeking unfiltered information, terribly shot with a camera phone, just because they want an alternative or more pure take." He spells out the point in more detail on his award-winning blog at " target="_blank">www.ddunleavy.typepad.com: "The popularity of 'backdoor' citizen-sourced media should be a wakeup call to the mainstream. If mainstream media executives are paying attention, which is sometimes doubtful, they will learn that the public clamors for more transparent coverage of major news events. Instead of worrying about offending advertisers by broadcasting the grim reality of Saddam's demise without fading to black at the moment of death or censoring the snap of a dictator's neck, the mainstream media would best serve itself by paying attention to the demands of increasingly fragmented audiences." If he were a network chief or newspaper editor, would he have run an explicit photo or video showing the grim ending of Saddam's execution? "That's tough," he says. "I think I would argue for it. Yes, it's morbid and tasteless, but I think we have a duty to have that kind of information. I would probably run it and take a lot of heat." Mail Tribune Editor Bob Hunter says the newspaper faced such a choice. Hunter got a call from the copy desk late last Saturday night. The paper had received a photo, a tight shot from the chest up of Saddam's face, his neck stretched unnaturally by the noose, at or just after the moment of death. The newspaper did not run the photo, choosing instead a photo of executioners placing a noose around the ex-dictator's neck. "You got a better sense of what was going on in that than from a photo of a dead person," Hunter says. One day earlier the newspaper had posted on its Web site ( www.mailtribune.com ) the question of whether photos of Saddam hanging should run in the paper. Readers were divided nearly evenly. Some didn't want children to see it. "... anything to sell a newspaper huh!" said another. "Plaster it all over the place," said another. One suggested showing only Saddam's feet. "Who cares?" said another. Hunter says the episode highlights a key difference between the Internet and newspapers. "A lot of things on the Internet get a lot of hits that wouldn't run in the paper," he says. "That's not bad, it's just different." One reader left a forum post that pointed out what is possibly the bottom line: Such images will be widely available regardless of what newspapers decide. Dunleavy says the whole issue underscores what he expects to be the central question at the Wednesday forum: where we are going in a digital universe and how we understand, value, consume and process news and information. Would you like to respond to this story? If so Click Here to visit our forums. Advertisement Copyright © 1997-2007 Mail Tribune, Inc. All rights reserved. Privacy Policy | Terms & Conditions | Website Feedback online casinos news Home Security Systems Online Casino Reviews Men's Clothing Fundraisers UK Homeowner Loans Discount Hotel Reservations Send Flowers Casinos Canada Texas Electric Choice Compare Electric rates in Texas Windermere Van Vleet Trunks, Footlocker Online poker at AbsolutePoker.com