By Karen Dunlap
The Power of the Lens
One angle shows a huge audience paying rapt attention to a speaker. Other angles capture walkers in the aisles, security officials glaring out from below the podium, a bag being passed across seats, a delegate in mid-yawn, a section of seating that’s nearly empty. So what’s the truth? What about the enthusiastic young lady during Heinz Kerry’s speech. Does she represent many present? Or does the man who seems bored? Sometimes it’s all true. Reality for most of us comes from the photojournalists and producers who capture the whole and who make fair decisions in framing the convention.
Whose Picture Made it Above the Fold?
After a night of speakers including Ron Reagan, Barack Obama and Teresa Heinz Kerry, one commentator asked, “But who will be above the fold tomorrow?” The answer seems to be a tie between Heinz Kerry and Obama, with something else altogether as the winner. Online pages seem more likely to have speakers in the lower page, if at all.
So what does that mean? Does having a picture above the fold during a political convention mean that was the most effective speaker, the most photogenic speaker, the best photo, the picture that came in at the best time, the one most likely to sell copies or something else? Interesting concept. Mixed results.
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A True Measure of Success
A reporter told Barack Obama that she had heard many compliments on his speech. His response? “I’m most proud that I stayed within my time limit.” The pace is king of the convention and the coverage .
But Does He Even Play Golf?
Speaking of framing and Obama, commentators found a few challenges in framing the Obama speech. There was more than one reference to Obama as “a Tiger Woods.” Hmmnn. Tiger Woods? Bi-racial, slender, rocketed to success at an early age. Why not “a Derek Jeter?” Or another framing. Why not, “a John Kennedy?” A young, Harvard graduate who enters politics and captures the imagination of a political convention at an early age. The problem with framing Obama as a Tiger Woods is that it leads with race instead of Obama’s achievements.
Then there was his name. He called himself,”a skinny kid with a funny name.”
Most commentators nailed the pronunciation as: Ba-rock. Some drifted to bare-ruk Obama. In an age of Osama, we can be grateful that no one called him Barack thebomber.
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