WHEN BOTH WORDS AND IMAGES COUNT: RIOTERS STORM THE CAPITOL

 

     As a media critic, I am very familiar with two particular expressions promoting the importance of visual images: " A picture is worth a 1,000 words" and " If you can show it, don't say it" ( relating to film). Last week's  January 6 assault on the U.S. Capitol  by so-called "protestors" showed these salient quotations in action.  But not entirely. 

     Words also played an essential part in the broadcasting of the event, much to the surprise of many viewers. Mid- afternoon coverage showed the action beginning as crowds took to the Capitol steps, open spaces and nearby streets, and later, to the inside of the building itself. Oddly enough, we were not privy to close-ups of the perpetrators, random people, police or reporters. We primarily only saw long-shots of the Capitol and the rioters. Images were limited, at least the kind we are used to seeing at other relatively recent protests in places like Baltimore, New York and  Lansing. Moreover, we did not see network correspondents on-air, alongside the images, commenting about the visuals.

     Instead, what we did experience were mainly words describing the action or first-hand accounts from reporters and former Congressional members concerning  what it was like to work in the Capital or its environs. In the absence of definable images, TV audience had to imagine what it was like to be there themselves. Words did count. Thus, former Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill  recalled her personal experiences when she would walk out of a controversial vote,  drawing a picture for us of the Senate Chambers and its surroundings.  ( " A place I loved and respected," she added with emotion.) MSNBC TV hosts would also add brief yet potent descriptions of their years covering the Capitol. Another use of language  was demonstrated in a video from the Senate Chamber executed by a writer from The New Yorker. ( The magazine's editor-and-chief, David Remnick, explained via an interview that the rioters repeated the words of President Trump in their ravings, which the viewers could certainly hear.)

     Then things changed. Powerful pictures and video started being broadcast, showing the protestors and the Capitol Police: images that would forever define the thrust and terror of the event. Consider a group of rioters scaling the Capitol's outside wall, onlookers wondering if these invaders would gain access to the building or fall down from their perch in the process. Visual symbols pervaded as well: an obvious rioter carrying a huge Confederate flag; a few days later, images of policemen standing in the Capitol's foreground, a striking reminder of what America had become.

      Finally, intense combinations of both words and images also prevailed. A long shot of interaction between police and rioters, complete with a circle pointing out the beating of a Capitol cop, conveyed the chaos brought on by the rioting. A voice-over provided the language component. A man with an untidy beard, wearing a T-shirt with the words "Camp Auschwitz ," also showed the mixture of both words and an image. 

     As MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell succinctly commented about the invasion, "We saw it with our own eyes." ( Meaning both words and images.)

     Everything counted on January sixth.