Saturday, September 8, 2012
TVN, the Mapuche and the manipulation of information
Seldom one, as a journalist and communications professional, may find uninformative gems (or of bad journalism), such as the item by TVN colleague Alvaro Saavedra, broadcasted on last September 5th, and, in theory, relating the discovery of weapons of war in the hands of a farmer in Ercilla. Journalism students, pay attention. Here follows an Express Workshop Information Manipulation, courtesy of TVN, the Channel for All.
First Step: A headline that misleads the reader or misinforms. The item by TVN that we will analyze meet this requirement: "arsenal discovered in murdered farmer's house in Victoria", it is titled. Obviously the murder did not happen and there was no death either. In fact, the supposed dead man walks at this hour free in the streets, no longer being held in custody despite being formalized for five felonies, including "death threat" and "illegal possession of prohibited firearm." An assault rifle and an M-16 LOW rocket launcher, among others.
Second Step: Use images of "handcuffed Mapuche" where rightfully should appear that farmer in handcuffs. The item by TVN is masterful in this regard. If you pay attention, the item starts with the image of Luis Marileo Cariqueo arrested and handcuffed while being led by members of the PDI. This villager from the town of Ercilla gave himself up voluntarily to justice a few days ago, at being investigated in another court case, certainly in nothing related to the discovery of the farmer's home arsenal in Victoria.
Third Step: Linking the confiscated weapons to the Mapuche (we already know this had nothing to do with the news reported by TVN). This is achieved with simple editing work. For example, in one image the Mapuche and in the next, the weapons seized. TVN's item accomplishes this in a perfect way: at 0:20 the Mapuche is passed being formalized in court to a wide shot of the weapons seized (from the farmer) and then a close-up of the M-16 rifle. Mapuche-Weapons-M16. Simple. And effective.
Fourth step: Reinforce the message as soon as possible, in case some confused viewers lost the connection "Mapuche-Weapons-M16". This item by TVN does so fantastically at minute 1:20, when an elderly gentleman is shown entering a van (actually this is the farmer of whom was seized the dangerous arsenal of war), being in turn protected by a member of his family, a female. At this point, when talking about his formalization (of the farmer), again the viewer is connected with the image of the handcuffed Mapuche in the courtroom. Minute 1:20, observe.
Fifth step: And if doubts remain (you know, there never fails to be a viewer that uses the bathroom or clowns around in front of the television or plays with the cat on the couch), end the item reinforcing the third and fourth steps. Once again TVN's item does this perfectly at the end, when it shows the statements of the police officer's in charge of the inquiry and complements his statement with new images of the handcuffed Mapuche in court (a Mapuche who, as we know, had nothing to do with the crime).
Well, if you follow these steps, the result will be a nearly perfect gem of disinformation. The colleague Alvaro Saavedra did so(or his editor, we might suppose in his defense) and in this way the item about a dangerous farmer (non-Mapuche) and armed to the teeth with a history of being part of a paramilitary commando became (at least in this audiovisual setup) to being an item on a dangerous Mapuche, handcuffed and formalized for some weapons of war (also very dangerous) who-thanks to police work, was seized and taken out of circulation.
Here the item of TVN. https://vimeo.com/49028329
Judge for yourself.
Posted by Autonomous Mapuche Community Temucuicui
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