Nihil, I must confess to having an animus against TV cameramen, born of bitter experience.
They are almost invariably male, tall, and hefty, and they use their even heftier equipment to shove everyone else out of the way, in order to occupy the front row. Picture yourself as a relatively short, and definitely female radio reporter with nothing more lethal to wield than a Sony 5000. Then imagine yourself at a press conference somewhere in Awfulstan, trying to worm your way to the front, and to poke your mike through the serried ranks of cameramen, close enough to the Premier of Awfulstan so that you can get some "acts" (you need sound, after all, just as much as the TV cameramen need pictures).
Then consider whether your weak female squeak ("let me through, please") will ever be heard over the basso profundo roar emitted by the cameramen...Then, after the press conference is over, visualize yourself tumbling down the stairs headfirst, sent flying by a herd of stampeding cameramen who have again used the instruments of their trade to clear the path before them...
Moving on, from my visceral dislike of TV cameramen to the issue of journalists in general, I would take issue with your assertion that "neither a reporter or a cameraman can tell the unvarnished truth". Which reporter? Which cameraman? Which media outlet, etc.? It seems to me that you may be generalizing from a limited number of personal esperiences, nihil.
I have the advantage of having been, at one time or another, a reporter, an academic, and a (minor) government bureaucrat. And in my considered judgment, you are more likely to get something close to the 'unvarnished truth" from the reporter than from the academic or the bureaucrat. IMHO.
Besides, as Pilate said, -- "What is truth?"
Joan |
