SAY CHEESE! READING + VOCAB

A Read the quotes about the media. Which do you agree with? Discuss with a partner.

“The media is the most powerful entity on earth … [it has] the power to make the innocent guilty and to make the guilty innocent and that’s power. Because it controls the minds of the masses.”

“People shouldn’t expect the mass media to do investigative stories. That job belongs to the ‘fringe’ media.”

“Paparazzi armed with telephoto lenses have long been the scourge of the rich and famous, but surely they welcome the publicity.”

B How objective are the following types of media? Discuss with a partner.

• traditional print media

• TV news

• documentaries

• news blogs

• TV current affairs shows

Two sides to every story

by Cameron McVie

A poignant moment when a wrongly convicted man is finally set free. An actor caught in the glare of flashbulbs as he stumbles out of a nightclub. These are the subjects of Lottie Banes and Aaron Campbell – a documentary film-maker and a paparazzo respectively. What connects them is their work in the media, but that’s where any similarity ends.

Originally looking to a career in feature films after studying under a famed director, an unexpected turn of events led Lottie to make a documentary and she hasn’t looked back since. I ask her why documentaries are quickly becoming the most exciting genre of film-making.

“Feature documentaries have become the place for telling in-depth stories, now that traditional journalists are too busy chasing page views,” she replies. She has a point. In a previous era, the evening news, the daily papers and the newsweeklies were the main places to get the latest international news of the day, but no longer. The new, gossipy style of TV and print journalism has surrendered the role of serious investigative journalism to documentarians.

“The information void that has been created is being filled by documentary film-makers around the world,” she continues. “Documentarians are the new journalists, not simply because journalism itself is in a state of crisis. The content of documentaries is more gripping than the content of journalism.”

Often fuelled by a passion for the truth and moral outrage, they don’t just scratch the surface but rather delve deep into an issue. Documentaries mirror our own reactions to what is happening. We can thus connect with the content in a way that is not possible with traditional media.

As far as Aaron Campbell is concerned, he’s providing a community service. He says most people enjoy the photos. “The fact is celebrities have become a guilty pleasure, and I challenge anyone to say they haven’t read celebrity gossip. Click rates don’t lie – there are figures to show how many views a story generates. It’s the public’s insatiable demand for celebrity gossip that keeps the photo agencies in business.”

Distinguishing between viewpoints

• Read the text closely to understand exactly what the writer is saying.

• You will need to distinguish between apparently similar viewpoints or reasons in the options.

• Locate the part of the text that contains the answer (the questions are in the same order as the information in the text) and make sure it matches the option you think is correct.

• What do you think is the quickest and easiest way to become famous nowadays? Why?

• Would you like to be a Z-list celebrity? Why? / Why not?

• Do you think celebrities pay too high a price for fame? Why? / Why not?