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Kudos to Matt Bors, Tjeerd Royards and Caroline Bins over at Cartoon Movement for their excellent comics journalism work on Haiti and the ongoing plight of the thousands of disenfranchised people there, now that the mainstream media circus has predictably gotten bored and rolled out of town. What’s especially impressive is that CM has turned the mic over to Haitian journalists and creators to give them a chance to tell the story in their own voice, as opposed to the traditional 3rd person reporting we’re used to seeing. Here’s the first instalment of a comic by Chevelin Pierre & Pharès Jerome, “Tents Beyond Tents” that you should check out.
As if that wasn’t groundbreaking enough, there’s also an innovative mash up of comic art, audio and video in another related piece, this time focusing on the LGBT community in Haiti and the precarious nature of their survival in the tent cities:
In the wake of SXSW interactive earlier this week, the web has lit up with talk of new technologies for revolutionizing news content and consumption. Speaking of which, here are the winners of the festival’s web award winners, sneaking you a glimpse of the future apparently. Though that was on Monday, so it just about balances out as the present. One of the buzz words in the ‘future of journalism’ panel was the idea of context, and essentially how the outpouring (and overflowing) of real-time news via all the now widely-accepted feeds are actually numbing the public’s interest in important topics as opposed to stimulating it. The answer? Many suggested harking back to narrative approaches, with the most-often quoted perfect example of detailed, informative and, most importantly, engaging reporting coming courtesy of This American Life and their Giant Pool of Money episode. For those of you hearing about it for the first time, TAL is one of the best podcasts out there, is streamed for free every Monday, and is available for subscription through itunes. Go. Now. Subscribed? Ok. You should also try Radiolab too, which is of the same ilk. Please – if you can recommend any more, leave a comment or email me – I’m in the process of creating a links page where I’ll house this aural treasure trove.
The reason why these two podcasts are so phenomenally successful and effective? Because of the way narratives are interwoven with the raw data of a topic. We meet the characters, we hear them explaining their actions from their point of view, and we get a sense for why they acted the way they did – whether they’re mortgage brokers or first-time buyers taking out loans they can’t afford to pay back. Obviously, TAL’s medium is different from mine, so my focus is visual, but it got me thinking – what are other ways to incorporate narrative in news reporting?
Photojournalist Ed Kashi has embraced a multimedia approach by creating a fast-streaming slideshow of his photos around Iraqi Kurdistan – somehow bypassing the intrusive glare of a videocamera to present a far better portrait of the subjects in his shots than I’ve seen in any live feed. I especially like that Ed’s shots include sequences that wouldn’t necessarily be chosen using the standard means of narrowing down a selection for an editorial piece. One much-trumpeted yet arguably not so effective use of multimedia is the launch of VIVmag, one of the first digital-only magazines focusing its production around the soon-to-be available technologies of the ipad. For all its whistles and bells however, I can’t help but think that the information being presented in this sample article below is still appearing in standard blocks of text. Granted, the transition from block to block is cinematic, but that strikes me as more of a fancy page turn than a fully interactive approach using narrative innovation. One example of this is at 0:34 secs in, with the ‘You Might Get Aids’ header. Your comments welcome.
Now let’s move the spotlight to a couple of different online apps, the Survivors Connect Map and this incredible one of Haiti, courtesy of Ushahidi. Both are open to (better yet – dependent on) the public for submissions, displaying all data that is submitted in an unfolding narrative of the situation on the ground. This isn’t just news, it’s a tool for NGOs to more effectively channel their resources where they’re needed. Suddenly Haiti isn’t just another global disaster a million miles away – it’s heartfelt messages coming from specific addresses that make it feel like it’s happening next door. (Where did all those Haiti donations go, by the way?). A similar technology is available domestically through twitter, allowing you to search for specific terms used near a location, although presumably you have to go through following whoever you find before you can contact them directly. Of course, one thing missing from the real-time turnaround (as mention above) is someone to lead you through that data. But who?
Look no further than Edward Tufte, the ‘Da Vinci of data’, who has recently been appointed by the Obama administration to a committee tasked with presenting a coherent, intelligible layman’s guide to the Federal Stimulus package. And, more importantly, where all the several hundred billions of dollars of it went. Of Tufte’s many innovations are what are called ‘sparklines‘ – succint snippets of information, standing in defiant opposition to the cluttered complexity of a standard graph. One example of how fascinated we are by infographics, one of Mr Tufte’s specialities, is this one which was recently one of Digg’s top picks, despite lacking links or any substantiating evidence whatsoever.
In case you missed it, voting is still open for your favourite cover design of the four that I posted on Friday – scroll down to view them, then leave a comment or vote using this here link.
The School of the Americas comic is now in print as the full-colour centrefold (now then) of the latest issue of Presente!, the School of the Americas Watch newsletter. Here it is in all its tactile glory on my desk. Order your free copy and find out more about the SOAW here.
And in case you’ve had your head in the sand the last few days, or are an ardent global warming naysayer (not that there’s much of a difference, admittedly), spare a thought for the poor souls in Chile, who are reeling from one of the strongest earthquakes in recorded history that has destroyed 1.5 million homes and left 700 dead, with the toll expected to rise. It turns out that the strongest ever earthquake (a massive 9.5 on the Richter scale) also hit Chile, some 50 years ago, making it the go-to place for seismologists to conduct research. So thankfully, emergency procedures and containment plans for recovering from such a disaster were already in place and no doubt saved a large number of lives. More on this from the BBC here.
Naturally, comparisons have immediately been drawn between the devastation in Haiti and Chile. Despite Chile’s quake being 5 times stronger, the damage is considerably less than January’s quake, largely due not only to the fact that the epicentre of the Haitian quake was much closer to the surface, but also to the far more advanced construction of Chilean buildings (for reasons outlined above). Another point also worth bearing in mind is the rapid, efficient response of Chilean President Michele Bachelet to the disaster: she held off immediate foreign aid for fear of complications; ordered police to allow victims free access to essential supplies from supermarkets; and was soon offering minute-by-minute updates on the recovery efforts. A far cry from the debacle in Haiti, where international efforts were complicated by the US unilateral takeover of the main airport and subsequent diversion of non-US approved flights, plus the worrying number of US troops (reportedly around 10,000) who were deployed ‘for security purposes’. Surely emergency disaster relief is the UN’s chief role? So it would seem on their website.
Saddest of all is the ‘satire’ of Pat Robertson’s now legendary diatribe against Haiti, which some eager blogger cut and pasted to fit the latest Chilean disaster. Sadder still is that so many in the blogosphere fell for it (here’s the full summary), taking it as a real report. Staying with Chile, below is a comic from the archive that I put together about the US involvement in the 1973 Chilean coup that ousted Salvador Allende. My thoughts, condolences and best wishes go out to those affected in Chile.
[GALLERY=2]
Brace yourselves, this is going to be a long one to reflect what an ugly week it’s been in US-related politics. First up, here’s the latest part of the School of the Americas piece – skip back 3 steps to get to the beginning and find out more about SOA/WHINSEC and their illustrious graduates’ violent pasts.
As the estimated number of dead in Haiti rises past the 200,000 mark, several news reports (Democracy Now!, The Guardian and Al Jazeera for starters) are describing the US’s apparent takeover of the main airport at Port-au-Prince. Convoys carrying aid, medical supplies and water are being re-directed to make way for a worrying number of US troops, who are being deployed ‘to ensure security’. Yes Magazine had a great quote from Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who, after declaring her expectation that the Haitian government would pass an emergency decree – including things like the right to impose curfews – said, “The decree would give the government an enormous amount of authority, which in practice they would delegate to us”. Of course they would.
Naomi Klein leads the charge for transparency to prevent Haiti from succumbing to the free market agenda that New Orleans did in the aftermath of Katrina. Here’s a checklist of suggested actions sent by Rep. Paul Teller on September 13, 2005 – let’s hope they don’t start happening in Port-au-Prince. One other chilling similarity with Katrina is the already conspicuous presence of Blackwater-esque private mercenary forces, operating under the philanthropically-tinged moniker International Peace Operations Association. For an altogether more upfront description of their services in Haiti, checkout this webpage hosted by a similar private outfit called All Pro Legal Investigations – under the ‘Personal Protection’ header they’ll even deal with ‘worker unrest’ and ‘high-threat terminations’. What more could an International Peacekeeping force want? Jeremy Scahill has the whole scoop over at the Nation.
The bad news then came home, not only with the loss of the Massachusetts Senate seat for the Democrats, but also yesterday’s Supreme Court ruling that curbing corporate donations to electoral campaigns is unconstitutional. Why? Because it infringes on the said corporations’ first amendment rights to free speech. I’m sure that’s exactly what Thomas Jefferson had in mind when he said, “the end of democracy will occur when government falls into the hands of the lending institutions and moneyed incorporations.” See corporate watch for more info.
Lastly, one piece of good news to try and even up the balance. The online human rights and social justice magazine Independent World Report will publish my 4-page piece on Diego Garcia in their next issue.
Here’s the rest of the first page of the School of the Americas comic, which will be featured as the centrefold spread in the next issue of Presente! As the death toll continues to rise in Haiti, check out this episode of Democracy Now! below on how the crippled country and its hamstrung government is coping with the biggest natural disaster in two centuries.
