Sometimes you have got to wonder how journalists earn their keep (thankfully as a blog I can put out any old shite, but you'd expect them to have some standards!). For instance this "story" written by Peter Beaumont for the Observer. Here he suggests that the recent pictures of an Amazonian tribe were some sort of set up. Well they were. As my post suggested these pictures were put out by the Brazilian Government with the intention of proving a known tribes existence (something denied by loggers and other Governments) and helping raise awareness for their plight. It's a marketing ploy used with good intent!
Mr Beaumont suggests in his article that people were suggesting that this was an undiscovered tribe. I saw this suggestion NOWHERE. Not even in the article his article links to!! Now this could of course have all been an innocent mistake but it unleashed a torrent of "hoax" stories. This undermines the work of the Brazilian Government and Survival International.
To make matters worse Mr Beaumont has now threatened to sue Survival International because they are quite rightly denying wrongdoing. Sheesh... some people. I'd expect better of the Observer. Does he really think that it's such a jump from his news story to the word "hoax" used by even less reputable journalists? He may not have suggested it was a hoax but he does send the reader off down that train of thought.
And what is it with people suing all the time?? It's such a sign of weakness.
Oh P.S. his actual point would have been better if it was clearly "Why did they choose to disturb the tribe?" (an interesting moral issue, and something he gives just a paragraph to) rather than "Shucks they lied" (when in fact they did not mislead at all, it's just he misinterpreted the press releases).
No comments:
Post a Comment