Authenticity is simple enough if you just stop faking it
Posted: August 4th, 2010 | Author: Wade | Filed under: General, Politics | Tags: 10 Downing Street, Ethics, Federal Election Campaign, Politcs, White House | 5 Comments »The Australian Federal election campaign has to this point consisted mostly of shallow and confected photo-ops and simplistic sloganeering. There is generally one stage-managed event enacted for the cameras each day, crafted to illustrate whatever policy announcement the party is planning to unveil.
However the Prime Minister Julia Gillard has acknowledged in recent days that Labor’s campaign strategy has not served her well, and to that end she has announced that for its remaining weeks she will take personal control and that from now on Australians will get to see ‘the real Julia’.
But if it’s authenticity the PM wants, there’s a pretty simple way to go about achieving it. She wouldn’t even be pioneering new ground, because the White House and Downing Street have been doing it for years.
United States governments have for decades indulged fly-on-the-wall, documentary-style political photography. White House photographers have been permitted to record even the most critical meetings in the Oval Office in a candid manner, Situation Room briefings on the eve of war, or a President’s more casual moments mid-flight aboard Air Force One. Entire US election campaigns have been photographed in this manner with books published to prove it.
No posing here: meeting foreign heads of state. Photo Pete Souza
Fly-on-the-wall: on board Air Force One. Photo Pete Souza
Real moments: the Situation Room. Photo Pete Souza
Recording reality: Presidential downtime. Photo Pete Souza
Britain’s former Brown Government allowed a photographer from The Guardian to witness the final moments of its tenure. Martin Argles was in the room as Mr Brown paced the floor waiting for the telephone call from Nick Clegg that was to inform him he was no longer Prime Minister of Great Britain.
While moments of such doubtless historical value are recorded as a matter of course elsewhere, Australian political parties of all persuasions have with only the briefest of exception conducted their business behind closed doors. In Australia, political photographers are feared by politicians more than the potential cultural and historical weight of their work is appreciated.
So if it’s an expression of authenticity she has decided she needs, the Prime Minister ought to simply pluck one photographer at a time from the campaign media bus to spend the day travelling alongside her team. Allow them to record the business of electioneering by facilitating that fly-on-the-wall approach. Let them photograph real, unscripted moments honestly.
Sure, offering access like this means taking risks, but against the present backdrop of stage-managed and contrived political imagery, one ounce of reality will make a stark difference and perhaps a positive impression on voters.
Phil Hillyard got good access during Gillard’s first week in the job and did some great work too.
Wade.
Australian editors, picture editors, reporters and photographers all go along for the ride [literally on the campaign bus] and are complicit in the major parties efforts to stage-manage the campaign.
Less worry about the budget would mean more photographers being on the campaign trail seeking out the unscripted moments.
But it seams to be easier to moan about the politicians and blame the party machines for what is really a lack of effort to genuinely prosecute the campaign by the daily papers.
Frankly, the voters deserve more from the media, but the media don’t deserve more from the parties.