Blog Post #8

Browsing through the New Yorker I viewed a digital story called “The Media Insurgents” where Raffi Khatchadourian talks about “wiki leaks,” a site where people who have access to secret government documents or have secrets of a particular institution can post them anonymously. The video shows reporters being shot and killed by a helicopter who mistake their camera equipment as weapons. The helicopter pilots mistake the reporter’s cameras on the ground to be RPGs (rocket propelled grenades). Raffi compares the U.S. Air force leaked video to a Hollywood film saying Americans are used to watching war from the barrel of a gun. The video of the shooting which would, in a movie, move to the ground rather than shoot and kill the people in the ground reminds us of how real it is when it does not and we see the reporters being shot down. The video is said to have not yet been released by the United States Air Force. Raffi’s comparison of the leaked film to a Hollywood film implies Americans are used to seeing violence but on the movie screen. Another bigger implication is that this is one video but of how many military videos that have made the same or similar mistake?

The second digital story I saw is called “The U.S. and the World Cup” where Hampton Sides reviews two players and the American team as a whole. The video starts with Tim Howard who plays goalie for the U.S. while Sides talks about the lack of soccer in our cultural history compared to other nations. To counter the argument that we have not been all that successful in soccer World Cups he describes our strongest suit against them to be our defense, more specifically Tim Howard . He is arguably the best goal keeper in the world who previously played for Manchester United. Sides makes note of Howard’s turrets which has been suppressed by sensory overload of being a goalie. Sides claims that the media hassled Howard due to his disease but also states how he overcomes it and is consumed by soccer so much so that he has the ability to suppress it under the stresses of goal keeping. Sides explanation of Howard overcoming his disease in a way parallels the country’s handicap of being a young soccer culture, who like Howard when in the game will overcome those difficulties. Sides says we have always been the underdog but our chances are better with the inclusion of Lennon Donovan and Tim Howard. Donovan plays attacking midfielder and with Donovan and Howard Sides projects a possibility for improvement against the odds. Sides says he does not expect us to win the whole thing but does expect a significant improvement considering out lineup for this world cup.

Both videos are edited with audio superimposed so the video audio is less audible than the speaker’s voice. Both videos strung several relative clips together to emphasize what they were talking about while the video showed what their narration was saying about the video.