reblogged form motleyglue:

“So about those Polar Bears. Let’s be clear; nature does not line itself up, all “raw” and “visceral” and hurl itself into our telly screens for consumption. It’sproduced; from the moment a documentary is concieved, it is contrived and constructed.

Okwonga’s angle typifies our habitual misconception and fetishisation of photo-reality as reality. (But this guy works in media? Don’t they immunise you against that on the first day?).  Reality, went. Ages ago.  And the line between photoreality and ‘CGI’ is pixel-thin, overlayed a few times and with a shed-load of blur to give the impression of depth of field.

(It’s all ‘enhanced’! Everything!! Look!!!)

OK that’s not so bad. What’s terrible is that anyone gives a monkey /polar bear/ whatever. Because in the REAL world, Cameron has left the UK floating up the Atlantic without a paddle, or a friend (except the US, but that’s ok cuz the dollar will never collapse, right?), and the inquiry into the really properly morally destitute media whores is re-opened.

I don’t subscribe to the theory of a singly masterminded conspiracy. But. When the media is so desperate to distract us from both what IS newsworthy, and from the stink of its own backfired distractions – with a well-timed soup of such cute fluff and contrived confrontation as would make Simon Cowell proud – the icky symbiosis of governance and media is horribly, scarily obvious.

The reality or honesty that I want from media is more fundamental than location or editing. If necessary, composite Cameron’s head onto some fuzzy bear cubs, and then lets have discussion and debate of something relevant to our interests.”