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Comment by sureaboutthis | Hacker News Reader

Television "news" used to be really good about providing cinematic images instead of reality. A crowd of protestors on the street but, when the camera pulls back, you find the "crowd" is about 10 people and no one else paying any attention to them.

Fortunately, some are better about pulling back intentionally to show such things but I still catch it occasionally.

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A good example of this was when the hungarian state television reported on a protest. The reporter stood blocks away from the protest itself and reported that there were practically no protesters. In contrast, a non-state owned television's reporter was standing among the protesters, so the difference is astounding: https://thecontrarianhungarian.files.wordpress.com/2012/01/p... [0]

[0] https://thecontrarianhungarian.wordpress.com/2012/01/08/to-t...

On a similar theme, 2 of my favourite photos were taken when I was safariing in Tanzania.

The first, 3 lions clustering over a recent kill, an example of wild, raw Africa.

The 2nd, pulled back, has the 3 lions in the background and about a dozen Jeeps in the foreground, all with heads stuck out the top like me taking photos.

The 2nd one even has someone looking into my lens with a slightly guilty look on their face, as if they knew I was revealing "commercialised" Africa.

Here's another example.

https://www.thecanary.co/uk/2017/05/13/a-bystander-took-a-be...

A more ironic version is when the journalist taking pictures of the protest are more numerous than the protest

Or when a well-known TV anchor pretends a whole area is flooded, but is actually standing in a ditch.

Please tell me you're not referencing the widely debunked Anderson Cooper conspiracy theory.

https://www.snopes.com/fact-check/anderson-cooper-hurricane/

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