Sarcozona has noticed the lack of coverage of the climate change march by the mainstream press.

Not surprising – during the run-up to the second Iraq war, the massive demonstrations against that invasion involving millions of people all around the planet went nearly unreported.

These sorts of things, despite the climate march at least being partially co-opted by corporate interests, do not please our corporatacracy so reporters are not assigned to cover such actions. If implicitly anti-corporate and anti-government (these days the same thing) marches or demonstrations are reported at all, the reporters are likely instructed to minimize the story and the crowds present.

Not a formal conspiracy – just corporations looking out for their own interests and that of their sponsors.

CNN as sarcozona pointed out half-truthed their way into underestimating the crowd severely.

But it went beyond that, though. Let’s look at some images.

One image from a less-biased source giving an idea of the true scale of the crowd:

Yeah, that’s a lof of people – you can’t even see the end of them.

Now let’s look at just one example of the images CNN used in the video at the top of this article:

Hey, I think I see a difference!

Note that all of the portrayals of the march in the CNN video consisted of these relatively-tight shots of sparse crowds, interspersed with on-the-street reporting. The example I’ve chosen is the widest shot of them all. There were NO wide-angle shots of any sort of the entire massive throng of people, which is highly unusual.

I was a US Army photojournalist for five years. My job wasn’t reporting the truth (though I think in total the journalism done in the Army was more truthful than that done by mainstream media) – my job was to report the truth that made the Army and its units look good.

So I know a little something about how to avoid lying in a story while still only telling the truth that those in charge want told.

What CNN has done is an absolutely textbook example of that. Nothing in the CNN story is a direct fabrication. “Tens of thousands of people” is not incompatible with 300,000+ people. In fact, 300,000 people is tens of thousands. But if you think that figure is usually employed that way, I’ve got some rocks painted gold that I’d like you to buy for actual gold prices. What CNN did is like saying, “The US contains hundreds of thousands of people.” Not wrong. Just bewilderingly shady.

Likewise, showing only medium and close shots of the crowd isn’t mendacious, just highly misleading.

It’s all a textbook example of how to not quite lie while utterly concealing the truth.

Update: This drone footage while fairly low-quality gives a pretty good idea of the number of people marching.

Movies could use more magical realism, as found in Beasts of the Southern Wild.

Magical realism rarely works that well in novels. At least I don’t think so. Most of the time it just obfuscates the narrative though sometimes it can be executed well. (Don’t even talk to me about Carlos Castaneda, that putz.)

Movies, though, are often dreamlike by their very nature, just by dint of the contingencies of the medium itself. Adding some elements of magical realism to films does them justice, often.

Or another thought: movies make reality seem more dreamlike and unreality seem more concrete.

That’s the consequences of humans being such visually-oriented animals.

But do watch Beasts of the Southern Wild if you have not — I should have added it to this list, but forgot.

Becoming a parent seems to make most people into some sort of weird pseudo-human that causes them to consign to oblivion everything that happened before they decided to grace the earth with their crotchsplosions.

I don’t understand why. Having a kid takes no particular skill. It just takes fucking and then waiting.

When I was a kid — and this wasn’t uncommon at all — kids were not centered in adult life. Not like they are now. At the time it made me unhappy, but then again I was an unusual kid.

This is another relative-large social shift in my lifetime that I don’t really understand the genesis of, nor the dominance of the underlying weltaunshauung. I’m not even going to speculate on how it developed.

This article covers some pretty good annoyances typically heard from those folks, though.

Indicating to these people that having kids is the only way they will reach some higher level of understanding is both inconsiderate and rude. I don’t know what the alternatives to these statements are. Maybe just cut anything that starts with “When you have kids…” out of your repertoire all together. It makes you sound like their mom anyway.

I don’t have any problem with people having kids. I just don’t believe it makes you a saint, a better person than me, or qualified to dispense unwanted advice. That’s all.