Everybody Else Is Doing It, So Why Can't We?
On the one year anniversary of Barack Obama’s election, the TASCHEN Store New York invites you to the launch of Design For Obama. Editors Spike Lee, New York Times columnist Steven Heller, and founder of DesignforObama.org, Aaron Perry-Zucker will be on hand to sign or personalize your copy.
Wednesday, November 4th, 2009
6-8 pm
TASCHEN New York
107 Green Street, New York, NY 10012
Tel: 212.226.2212
Two weeks ago Channel 10 News’ Miki Haimovich conducted an interview with Nobel laureate Ada Yonath. The following day, Channel 10’s morning show re-edited the interview to make it look as though the morning hosts Haim Etgar and Sivan Cohen are conducting the interview themselves. This was recently mentioned in Yediot Ahronot but I thought I would create a video to demonstrate this journalistic atrocity:
Now people may ask “What’s the big deal? Instead of this person doing the interview, you get that person”. Well, I contend that this is a big deal since unlike other professions like advertising, sales or law where honesty is no longer expected -- in journalism, credibility is currency. We don’t expect our newsmen to lie to us -- not intentionally, not wittingly -- and finding out otherwise is disheartening.
Update: You can read this post in Hebrew here.
Steven Heller, co-chair of the School of Visual Arts’ MFA Designer as Author Program, writes the “Visuals” column for the New York Times Book Review, and is the author of 120 books on design, illustration, and satiric art -- including TASCHEN’s Design For Obama which features my own original English-French-Hebrew design on page 95. The book will be available worldwide in two weeks, so in the meantime you can check out Heller’s discussion with the Philadelphia chapter of AIGA (American Institute of Graphic Arts) on the outpouring of posters for Barack Obama’s 2008 presidential campaign. Heller also compares today’s political graphics to the campaign posters of a previous generation, and the relationship between democracy and design.
Last week Israel’s Channel 2 News had a segment about brides and grooms that want their wedding to be different. Apparently, after watching a couple of viral wedding videos they thought to themselves: “Yeah, how about we do something original for a change: Let’s do exactly what those other people did…”. Forget about holy matrimony, these people are here to entertain you on their quote-unquote “most important day” of their lives.
The segment is in Hebrew, but you don’t really need to understand the language in order to understand this copycat phenomenon should be studied by both psychologists and sociologists. You can skip over the first 55 seconds:
