“It’s a cliché that a
picture is worth a thousand words. It can be — but when it comes to the
flouting, or apparent flouting, of lockdown rules, a thousand words is better
than a picture.
“Sometimes, such images do
highlight legitimate problems. Often, however, they’re lazy clickbait. At
worst, they’re dangerous. It’s one thing to state that social distancing is
essential right now, and advise people as to how they can do it effectively.
Visual snitching on random people . . . is quite another. We
aren’t the lockdown police.”
—Jon
Alsop, “There’s no wisdom in crowd photos,” Columbia
Journalism Review, April 29, 2020. Image: Overhead view shows beachgoers weren't as close to each other as they looked on the evening news. “Uproar reaction over social distancing at beaches,”
News4Jax, Jacksonville, FL, April 20, 2020.
• Editorial Comment: It all depends on your perspective . . . and the
focal length of your lens.
Piglet
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“I don’t think writers are sacred,
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order, you can nudge the world a little.” —Tom Stoppard
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