Some Broadsheet Covers that have been Controversial and Addressing the Gaze in Photojournalism
Here is the list of some broadsheet covers about Myanmar that have been controversial.
1. Controversial Myanmar pastor who claimed Christians are immune from Coronavirus tests positive
https://www.myanmarmix.com/en/articles/controversial-myanmar-pastor-who-claimed-christians-are-immune-from-coronavirus-tests
2. In Myanmar Army’s Corner, Aung San Suu Kyi Will Defend It in Genocide Case
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/12/10/world/asia/aung-san-suu-kyi-myanmar-genocide-hague.html
3. After Meeting Trump, a Myanmar Minister Faces Criminal Charges
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/09/03/world/asia/myanmar-minister-trump.html
4. A Myanmar Doctor Trades Her Scrubs for a Bikini, and Loses Her License
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/06/18/world/asia/myanmar-doctor-model.html
5. Who Was Most Opposed to Freeing 2 Reporters in Myanmar? Aung San Suu Kyi
https://www.nytimes.com/2019/05/10/world/asia/myanmar-reuters-aung-san-suu-kyi.html
6. The Rohingya Suffer Real Horrors. So Why Are Some of Their Stories Untrue?
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/02/01/world/asia/rohingya-myanmar-camps.html
7. Myanmar MPs Debating Controversial Religion Laws
https://www.voanews.com/east-asia/myanmar-mps-debating-controversial-religion-laws
8. Myanmar Raids Reveal New Production of a Killer Drug
https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/19/world/asia/myanmar-drug-raid-fentanyl.html
9. Power play: How Chinese money damned Myanmar’s economic transition
https://frontiermyanmar.net/en/power-play-how-chinese-investment-damned-myanmars-economic-transition/index.html
10. How China Pushes Its Agenda in Myanmar Media
https://myanmar-now.org/en/news/how-china-pushes-its-agenda-in-myanmar-media
Addressing the Gaze in Photojournalism
The power of the gaze applies to art (as Berger gleans in Ways of Seeing) and photography. Looking at someone using a camera or looking at images thus produced is clearly different from looking at the same person directly. Indeed, the camera frequently enables us to look at people whom we would never otherwise see at all. In a very literal sense, the camera turns the depicted person into an object, distancing viewer and viewed.
In this modernized world, the technology is allowing the visual journalists to edit the images which hard to detect manipulation. Even before editing the images, the journalist’s own gaze can frame the story. Journalists have the right to gaze the images as long as the images is not leading to misrepresentation. His own gaze should not let the realism and the truth to be disappeared or faint the true story. So, the question is who are the gatekeepers? I would say journalism should be the gatekeepers for those misrepresentation. We can address the misrepresentation by the help of fact checkers. Misrepresentation using images is using a picture from one situation to illustrate another situation. It’s important to be conscious of this because it might give the wrong decision to the people.
As a visual journalists, it’s very important to bring the truth with ethical standard to the viewer. Especially in Myanmar, Facebook is internet for most of the Facebook users and there is lack of double checking and most of them are believing the fake news and/or misrepresentation news. There are some fact checking pages to inform the fake news to people. But most of them are still far away to reach these fact check sites. Even some main stream media were once trapped with fake news and published that fake news. (http://burmese.dvb.no/archives/382527). I think we need to give awareness to viewers about misrepresentation things for the sake of truth.
— Kyaw Soe —
A journalist based in Myanmar.
Student of Diploma in Visual Journalism — The Asian Center for Journalism at the Ateneo de Manila University
