When the earthquake hit Japan and the tsunami afterwards reached land, maybe for one of the first times in history it became a disaster that had more citizen journalism than ever. Thousands of Youtube videos appeared on the net with videos of the tsunami rolling in, showing the devasting energy that was at least for me before that unimaginable. With the atomic catastrophy that is now hitting the country with a still unclear result for Japan and also worlds economy it is hard to say how news from there should be covered. When is much too much? What is sensible enough and what becomes disrespectful for the people? Last year in Haiti the coverage of the aftermath became some kind of disaster porn, that made me leave ashamed. In Japan I feel most of the news world till now is doing a better job.

Dan Chung, acclaimed news shooter for the Guardian and well known for his DSLR videos, came to Japan right after the earthquake and covered the aftermath. He published a short video form that on Vimeo what resulted in a big discussion about the use of sliders, music and so on.

One could argue that it was maybe a bit too much too early. At a point where the results of this disaster was still unclear. This was also one of the replies of his editor at the guardian that re-edited the piece for a more news-like piece with voices of the people that give you a different take on the situation (see below). For me personally the use of sliders is in no way a difficult choice. The pictures are stylized to some extend, aesthetical and therefore maybe different than what we see normally, but as Dan points out in his reply to the discussion (and what was also discussed here in the blog before): The aesthetic is what drives people to the picture/video and when the aesthetic helps to connect people with the story, gives them a different insight into it, there is nothing wrong with it.