No joy in Tribville
If you'd like an intimate glimpse of the frustrations of journalists covering the FLDS raid and aftermath in Texas, go to Trent Nelson's blog Fly on the Wall. Trent, a crack photojournalist at the Tribune, is totally open with his pain at getting beat by the Deseret News' August Miller on the photos of FLDS families being reunited:
I knew I was in trouble all day when I didn’t see the photographer from our competition at any of the places we were. He must be somewhere better, I figured. ... I was dreading the journalistic beat-down that I knew was coming. . . .
Sure enough, this morning I find an amazing set of photographs documenting an FLDS family reunited with their children and moving into their new home. Emotional moments, hugs, kids playing joyfully. Just a bang-up job. And it’s not my work. What a letdown. After two months in Texas, this is definitely my lowest moment. To be shut out at such a critical moment? . . .
We [Trib reporters and photographers] thought we had built up some good relationships, while at the same time maintaining our objectivity. Others didn’t even try to be fair. Some reporters bought the state’s case hook, line, and sinker and never even tried to be fair. Others went the other way; I saw one reporter sit with the FLDS members in court, as if she was one of them. Neither approach felt right to me. We wanted the truth no matter where it took us.
1 Comments:
Ah, come on Trent. I love your photojournalism and your blog,and I would agree you have tried hard to be "objective"through your lens. But your colleague, plyg writer Brooke Adams? Claims of neutrality on her YFZ coverage are disingenuous at best. Adams has always been deeply sympathetic toward polygamy. It showed up in her Kingston coverage and it's all over her Tribune blog. (And an intriguing ethical dilemma for reporters who also keep blogs. If you share your personal views with all the world via your blog, how do you possibly pass yourself off as fair, balanced and trying to be objective as reporters?)
Adams set the FLDS parents up as martyrs from the get go.
Puh-leze.
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