Wow
Posted on January 25, 2010 - Filed Under Uncategorized | 7 Comments
Journalistic photographers are often maligned for grabbing photos and videos of the less fortunate without doing anything to help them. I think we’ve all seen shots where we wondered why the photographer was capturing the picture and not doing something to help, such as this Pulitzer winning photograph that garnered so much criticism (the photographer later committed suicide).
Today, I was on YouTube looking for some old videos for a Squidoo lens and came across a video of a boy who was injured in Haiti during looting. People had climbed up on top of the roof and dropped concrete blocks on the people below who were looting boxes of candles. One of the blocks hit this boy, who looked to be about 12 or so, in the head. He was pretty badly injured, which is why I’m not adding the video to this blog.
Normally, you would see the camera people filming an incident like this and staying out of it. Not this time. One of the camera men helped the boy to a support, then he THREW DOWN HIS CAMERA and carried the kid to a place where they could examine him.
Think about that. This is a network quality camera. I’ve been out of videography for nearly a decade now, but I know those suckers are still expensive. This is in the middle of chaos. People are looting. People are doing their best to injure others and get things for themselves and this man throws down his camera to help a boy. I can’t tell you how impressed I was by that move and the fact that here was a man who was more concerned with humanity than doing his job. That is, sadly, far less common than it ought to be.
The man’s name is Anderson Cooper and you can see the video here . . . but be warned that it’s pretty graphic.
Comments
7 Responses to “Wow”
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yup, I watch Anderson Cooper 360 alot… he never fails to get involved and tells it like it is. Unfortunately, there is so much suffering going on in the world sometimes I have to tune it out. It gets so overwhelming at times… but also makes me realize that with what little I do have myself, I am considered one of the lucky ones.
I did more research on him and realized that he is pretty famous in the US.
I’d never heard of him, but his site is very cool.
Things like this really do make you appreciate what you have!
What is impressive about Anderson Cooper that he is the the son of the writer Wyatt Emory Cooper and the heiress Gloria Vanderbilt, great-great-grandson of Cornelius Vanderbilt of the prominent Vanderbilt shipping fortune. And yet, he is so compassionate. I always watch his reports on CNN.
I watch him all the time. I’ve had a secret crush on Anderson for a while now. If you read about him, he actually had an epiphany years ago when he felt he had become one of those de-sensitized journalists.
That’s my Anderson! I love him and I record his 360 programme everyday so I can watch it early the next morning. About the camera…I guess he can do that seeing that he’s one of the big names in CNN so him trashing an expensive camera shouldn’t be a big deal. They’ll make it back probably in 5 minutes of his programme so he can have all the cameras he want.
The link to the video you posted is down, but I did see a clip of Anderson on TV. I watched him carry the hurt boy, running for help. He is a different kind of journalist than the rest, he’s in a league of his own.
I didn’t remember him putting his camera down. I thought he was usually in front of the camera, not behind it, but maybe I missed that detail.
Sounds like you saw the section after the camera . . . he originally came running over just supporting the boy, threw down the camera and then ran with the kid in his arms.