Järistyksiä

Being as it is, that my major news source these days (still!) is the Yahoo homepage, I have been unable to avoid Kevin Sites and his reports from where ever he finds it cool to report from (currently from the Israeli-Lebanese border). Something about him and the whole 'Hot Zone' concept just ticks me off so bad.

I took a look at his homepage http://hotzone.yahoo.com because Mr. Sites just won't leave the headlines, and I wanted to know who this dunce is before criticizing him more. He does have impressive credentials from covering events all over the world prior to this Yahoo-blog / tear-jerking / look-at-me-I'm-so-cool -reporting. Here's one event I'm sure you remember too:

In November 2004, Sites became a flashpoint of
controversy for one of the biggest stories of the
current Iraqi war, when as an NBC News correspondent
he videotaped a U.S. Marine shooting a wounded Iraqi
insurgent in a Fallujah mosque. After the video's
airing, Sites was both praised as a journalist willing
to reveal the harsh realities of war - and vilified as
a traitor to both the Marine unit in which he was
embedded and to his country.

So it was him that shot that piece - never would've guessed. Mostly because at the time nobody said "Kevin Sites - in the Hot Zone - filmed a Marine shooting a wounded Iraqi". No, the news was the shooting, not who shot the film. The whole "Hot Zone" thing still creeps me out. Take a look: they have a freakin' drop-down menu titled "See all hot zones" = a nice list for your convenience of areas where people are suffering and dying. Special design for your navigation ease and comfort.

This is their
Declaration of Principles

Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone is news reporting for the
new millennium - a nexus of backpack journalism,
narrative story-telling techniques, and the Internet,
designed to reach a global audience hungry for
information.

Yep, we're all hungry for our daily dose of "o-me'god, isn't that terrible?" - easily found from the neat drop-down -menu - before we go have dinner with the family. Aren't we? I do see that reporting like this might reach audiences who previously may have been uninterested; but I'm afraid that instead of being pushed into action or into joining a peace movement they'll follow it all like a video game. Or Dungeons and Dragons (yes, I am sooo old-fashioned) but with fighter planes for dragons and journalists for sorcerers.

Something just ticks me off about this, and I can't quite explain it. Maybe just the fact that it's called "Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone". Why should anyone care WHO the reporter is who is in the 'Hot Zone' (man does that piss me off too; why not "Slaughterhouse" or "Killingfields" or "Rape and Plunder" Those would probably attract even more attention)? Shouldn't the news be the point, not the guy reporting them? And don't you just looove that powerful design of black on red they've chosen for the site, with our Mr. Sites in silhouette, faithfully reporting the emptiness in front of him?