April 16, 2008
The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 8: About rats, squashed dogs and getting published
John Vink
First the rats: I wish you all a very happy New Year. A Khmer New Year that is... We're leaving the year of the pig for the year of the rat. I am a rat. 5th cycle. With some luck I 'll work my way through two more. It is one nice thing about Cambodia: if you forgot to celebrate Christian New Year, there is always the Chinese and the Khmer New Year to remind you that time passes by...
Now the squashed dogs. The French newspapers have a term for the 'Man Bites Dog' stories which reads: 'la rubrique des chiens écrasés' (the 'squashed dogs section'). These stories are always considered with some contempt by 'serious' news readers. Because well, according to the 'serious' news readers they are not important stories compared to the 'big' stories. You know the 'big' stories: the events you can see simultaneously on 80% of the television screens worldwide and towards which hundreds of journalist are flocking. Yes... But what is big for who? And who decides what is big? Is big 'big' because the majority says it is big? Or is big 'big' because the major media tell the majority what is big? Or is it a minority telling the media what is big?
There are many moments when an individual doesn't care about the 'big' events. For example the owner of the dog squashed by a runaway truck is convinced that the big story of the moment is his dead dog. He doesn't care if the Dalai Lama will have a discussion about Tibet with China. He cares about the disappearance of his dog. So do his children, his wife. The neighbours also think it is big news because they won't be disturbed by the barking at night. Another example are the 200 families who lost all their belongings in a fire this week in Phnom Penh. Hardly an event which will draw a crowd of foreign correspondents... Cambodia is far away.
Cambodia. Phnom Penh. 11/04/2008: A fire gutted the houses of about 300 families in the Toeuk Thla (Clear Waters) slum. © John Vink/Magnum Photos
And yet: about 1000 people who were living on the edge are now facing even harder times. If it isn't big news for Poughkeepsie (NY), for Fox News or the BBC, it is for them, their family, their friends (and for the real estate speculators).
That was it for the rats and the squashed dogs. Now you should ask: 'What has the getting published to do with squashed dogs and rats?'
We all know that as things are today it is hard to get published in the press. Even with 'big' stories. No more space, many more good photographers, no more money. That has gone somewhere else nowadays. What was directly supporting the traditional way of story telling with photographs (juicy assignments, stock sales) is dissolving into thin air. Certainly for me. What to do if you feel that telling these big and small stories, about squashed dogs, about people to other people still makes sense? Simply because it is important to communicate in order to understand and accept the other. Some of us turn to new distribution circuits, the art market being one of the most lucrative (but it requires specific skills). Or some of us turn to teaching (which requires another set of skills).
Some try the Internet which lets go of expensive intermediaries between the producer and the reader. I do. With three other journalists we have set up a website. It's live since ten days or so, despite power cuts 5 hours a day and ridiculously expensive bandwith. Nothing revolutionary about that... Nothing glamorous about that... But it serves a purpose. Ka-set (means newspaper in Khmer) is in French and in Khmer (and soon in English), tells stories about Cambodia and Cambodians abroad to Cambodians and Cambodians abroad, but also to anyone who might be interested in Cambodia. We're the only truly independent website in Khmer. We are free as birds. It is OUR website. WE decide what to talk about and how we do it. The whole staff signed a charter to that effect. No one is telling us what is big. We have CONTROL. I have control of my images all the way. And I go on telling stories, trying multimedia stories and having fun putting them together. Stories about squashed dogs, big stories for those we're writing for... And if I didn't goof on the budgetary side we might even make a decent cambodian living from it. That's why I need the year of the rat... It's time to do that sort of things... Downscaling. And hey: a minimal carbon footprint as a bonus...
Links:
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 1: UNICEF in Cambodia
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 2: Can Cultural Identity go private?
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 3: Arrest of Ieng Sary
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 4: Gathering Pace
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 5: Development is on the doorstep...
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 6: You've got 5 minutes
» The Khmer Chronicles / Issue Nr 7: Justice and Photography don't mix?
» John Vink's website
» John Vink's Magnum portfolio
» John Vink's Magnum In Motion story "Terre Rouge"
» John Vink's feature: Cambodia Khmer Rouge Trial
Published on the Magnum Blog on April 16, 2008
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