Animated News to the Rescue? No!

What fresh hell is this?

Animated news stories?

The new savior of journalism?

Just because the Taiwanese company Next Media Animation has attracted a lot of eyeballs by turning news stories into cartoons doesn't mean it's journalism.

Movies "based on true stories" are still fictionalized re-imaginings of real events -- and not to be confused with the real thing.

Triply true for these over-the-top Asian renderings of real people in fantasy scenarios.

Despite what this Time.com video (below) and accompanying story imply, just because these are situations that weren't captured by cameras or videocameras does not forgive the bizarre distortions of reality under the guise of "news."



Next Media Animation first gained notoriety in the U.S. by animating the supposed scuffle between Tiger Woods and his wife. It depicted her bashing in his car with a golf club -- an incident which both say never happened.

It's gotten much worse since then, with truly cartoonish vignettes of characters ranging from Lindsay Lohan in the slammer to Julian Assange in the sack. To call them journalistically unreliable and unbalanced would be a massive understatement.

This is a black eye for visual journalism. When it comes to depicting truth, and not what Stephen Colbert sarcastically dubbed "truthiness," there is no substitute for cameras and videocameras. Animated news? We're not buying it.

Would This Have Been Better As a Video?

Here's something to ponder. If Tiger Woods accidentally chips a golfball straight at you, would you rather be looking through the lens of an SLR camera or a videocamera? (No ducking -- you're a pro!)

(Click on image to enlarge)

Mark Pain, sports photog for UK's Mail on Sunday, was pointing his Nikon D3S at Tiger at the Ryder Cup when the ball loomed ever larger in his viewfinder. Pain had the wherewithal to fire off his own shot, at 1/1000th of a second, with a 24-70mm lens -- and better accuracy than Tiger's, it turns out. As his newspaper noted, he "didn't flinch, and captured this extraordinary picture just before the ball hit his camera, bounced on to his chest and came to rest at his feet."

Tell us, would it have been better had the same coming-at-you perspective been captured on video? Admittedly, the video would have been exceedingly short. Whereas the photo draws you in, invites you to relish the moment. For instance, watching a video, it's unlikely that you would have noticed that wonderfully surprised face of the mustachioed guy on the right with the stogie... much less Tiger's own chagrined expression.

On the other hand...