The Dawn Treader

I could not stop laughing when I first saw the now famous Today show blooper.  The Today's show gaffe involving the reporter paddling away in four inches of water is a funny reminder about a serious reality.

From Francis Schaeffer, How Should We Then Live?, p.240

"Actually, TV manipulates viewers just by its normal way of operating.  Many viewers seem to assume that when they have seen something on TV, they have seen it with their own eyes.  It makes the viewer think he has actually been on the scene.  He knows because his own eyes have seen.  He has the impression of greater direct objective knowledge than ever before.  For many, what they see on television becomes more true than what they see with their eyes in the external world.
    But this is not so, for one must never forget that every television minute has been edited.  The viewer does not see the event.  He sees an edited form of the event.  It is not the event which is seen, but an edited symbol or an edited image of the event.  An aura and illusion of objectivity and truth is built up, which could not be totally the case even if the people shooting the film were completely neutral.  The physical limitations of the camera dictate that only one aspect of the total situation is given.  If the camera were aimed ten feet to the left or ten feet to the right, an entirely different 'objective story' might come across."

Schaeffer is, of course, spot on.  We are manipulated by images all the time.  I think back to the poignant close-up shots of Cindy Sheehan in Crawford being comforted by Rev. Al Sharpton ... juxtaposed against a wide angle shot of the same scene revealing a staged shot complete with a media circus.  Thank you NBC for the comical reminder to a serious issue -- an issue that is especially serious in a culture like ours that depends on images to know things.