Time Magazine reveals more about its political bent than it intends in this piece, I suspect.
Every successful social movement has its defining images. Think of the civil rights movement, and the photos of protesters being attacked by police dogs and pummeled by high-pressure fire hoses. Or the Vietnam anti-war movement, and the video of body bags being beamed back to America’s living rooms. Even environmentalism has its iconic images, like Cleveland’s heavily polluted Cuyahoga River catching fire in the 1960s, smog wreathing Los Angeles’s skyline during the next decade and even the stark hole in the ozone over Antarctica. To help galvanize public support – especially around a complex issue – the right picture really can be worth a thousand words.
Time is still rolling about in its “glory” over their reporting on the Cuyahoga River fire some 40 years on. (Although that fire is somewhat less than Time makes it out to be.)
One should point out that it is really, really hard to get defining images – or any images at all – when it is dark.
At the moment, A strong storm is dumping snow and ice through a wide section of the Midwest. Many of the victims of that event wish they could turn their lights on.
