What do these Journalists/Bloggers Think of Their Readers…?!

Image of Krakatoa, June 2008
(or make-believe Puyehue)
URA INFORM – Ukrainian Rating Agency
2011 June 05
Text above image: In the south of Chile Puyehue volcano eruption.

 

 

 

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Recently I was searching for a current image of the erupting Gunung Raung. As we know, this volcano doesn’t give us spectacular images easily as its lava vents are hidden within a 500-meter-deep caldera. Some incandescence, lots of ash plume – that is what John Doe can see from a distance. But John Doe wants to see an exciting picture of his volcano. He assumes (and rightly so) that “the press” has got enough money from him and his fellow readers to be able to afford a helicopter flight over this volcano to take some decent pictures. Big problem for the press! But, well, one eruption looks just like the next, doesn’t it? the Internet is big, journalists are resourceful… and readers are dumb, so, no problem at all, we take just any image of any volcano… that’ll do, that looks great, and nobody will notice anyways… or that is what I think journalists do think of me.

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Image of Fuego del Colima, Mexico, 12 July 2015, by H. Guerrero
(supposed to show Mt. Raung)
Sott.net – Signs of the Times
2015 July 22;
Description: Raung exploded to life earlier this month
Article: “5 volcanoes in Indonesia erupt simultaneously – Ash clouds force airport closures”

 

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There were quite many “Raung”-labelled pictures that did not show Mt. Raung at all… As I have been piqued for long by such an attitude I went on looking for more samples of stultification of the masses. Gosh, what a rich harvest I had within an hour! In this post I show you just a few of my finds – have a good laugh!

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Image of Krakatoa, June 2008
(in lieu for Mt. Raung)
Empire State Tribune, Dubai
2015 July 22
Head line: “Bali flights cancelled as Mount Ruang flares” (they mean Raung not Ruang, well, never mind…)

 

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Image of Krakatoa, June 2008
(aka Kuchinoerabujima)
Meteovesti, Russia
2015 May 29
Text below image: Today, in the south of Japan on the island began erupting volcano Kutinoerabudzima Sintake…

This was written in kyrillic, which has all the letters needed to spell Kuchinoerabujima properly.

 

 

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Hmm, actually… I do not feel like laughing. If we extrapolate this to issues other than volcanoes, the question arises, how much of what we see and read in the media is actually true? Did this journalist have enough time for researching his article, or was he even inclined to? Was he pressed for money? Are there still many writers or just very few, who are proud enough to take their jobs seriously? I also wonder if there is not a law for spreading false information? A wrongly accused volcano cannot sue for libel, but can readers for constantly getting false information in form of images showing something else than stated in the article?

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Image of Krakatoa, June 2008
(or make-believe Puyehue)
URA INFORM – Ukrainian Rating Agency
2011 June 05
Text above image: In the south of Chile Puyehue volcano eruption.

 

 

 

Image of Mt. Redoubt, US, Alaska, by J. Warren, April 21, 1990.  (the middle image)
(to show off Krakatoa, would you believe!)
FAMILYHOLIDAY.NET
The website is designed to introduce beautiful Indonesia to potential tourists – this page is dedicated to Krakatoa. There are lots of good photos of Krakatoa on the page but in between them you stumble upon this one of Redoubt (named …Krakatau_explosion.jpg)… or my next example…

Special sugar plum from this page: “Now Krakatau Island, Indonesia is enriched with valuable minerals such as volcanic bomb, lava, lappili.” You don’t say!? I never knew how valuable volcanic bombs were! – Of course, it could be due to a bad translation – but the page is in English.

 

 

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Image of Pu’u O’o lava pond, Hawaii, 1990.
On this same page also features an image (for Krakatoa!) named …Puu_Oo_-_Crater_Lava_
pond_1990 .jpg

 

 

 

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So, we have to find other sources to get the information we are interested in. Unfortunately, this dreadful state of affairs has spread over the rest of the internet as well. Bloggers, people who would be perfectly able to find an appropriate image just by googling around a bit, manage to post up to three or four wrong pictures on one page for one volcano. Why? Because they can, I suppose. Even if there are no images of the present situation, they could still use an older picture stating the name and date – would it hurt?

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Image Santiaguito 1
Guatemala (supposed to show Fuego)
Bold Corsican Flame’s Blog

 

 

 

 

 

 

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Image Santiaguito 2
(also for Fuego)
George’s Travel Club, Guatemala
This guy claims that: “From my garden in Antigua, I am able to see all three of these spectacular natural wonders and for years now I have enjoyed waking up and gazing at them while having my morning coffee. Of course Fuego is the most fun to watch because it is often “puffing away” and it can sometimes put on a very dramatic show with its “blasts” of ash and smoke plumes.” So, how come he puts on a wrong, more dramatic photo for Fuego – slip-up or stultification?

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Image Villarrica 1
(make-believe Fuego)
eNCA – eNews Channel Africa, South Africa.
These are particularly clever – and that are the worst! They add this description to the photo: “File: In February, a strong eruption forced authorities to close the international airport because of the falling ash. Photo: REUTERS / Lautaro Salinas” All fine, all legal, no lies told. What year, what airport, authorities of which country? – doesn’t matter… Just… it happens to be the wrong piece of rock on the image! – oops, sorry, must have been the heat…

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Image Villarrica 2
(fake Kuchinoerabujima)
eNCA – eNews Channel Africa, South Africa.
It seems these people have got a stock of Villarrica photos and, each time they have to report on a volcano erupting somewhere in the world they grab one of them… John Doe wouldn’t mind…

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John Doe, of course, would be disappointed if that would change; he knows the price of his newspaper, and what he wants to get for it. He wants to see fireworks! So, we’d better give him a nice exciting picture… any picture of any volcano… he won’t notice, and will buy us again. Will he, really? I, for one, have had enough and have not bought one single printed product (newspapers, magazines etc.) for at least nine years. And I know a good few others who generally don’t.

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And the winner is… tatataaa… this blog page with a post on Gunung Raung plus three pictures of three different volcanoes, none of which is Mt. Raung, but two of which are renamed Raung:

Image of Gunung Kelud, Indonesia, Nov. 2007, by T. Pfeiffer
(to illustrate Mt. Raung)
Blog “indonesiapole”
Post “Mount Raung, flight cancellations and chaos in Bali”
By Christine Kerverdo 2015/07/16

 

 

 

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Image of Sinabung, Indonesia
On the same page as above (as ersatz for Mt. Raung)
Image renamed: …puncak_ gunung_ raung_ meletus.jpg

 

 

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Image of Merapi, Indonesia, 2010.
And yet another for Raung from the same page, renamed:
…Letusan-Gunung-Raung.jpg

 

 

 

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And the best of all I can not even show you: I found images (of some ordinary red-hot eruptions off the shelf) named …yellowstone.jpg (Un)fortunately, when I tried to view the pages they belonged to I was denied access. I hope some decent soul has flagged them as inappropriate and they are being removed.

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Disclaimer: I have researched all images as best as I could with Google Reverse Image Search and/or TinEye. I have tried to find the original with photographer and date taken, which was not always possible. In such cases, if TinEye returned 32 websites containing the image in question with almost all the descriptions naming one volcano as being shown in that image, I took it to be genuine. However, should there be a mistake in spite of all care I have taken, I apologize sincerely and will remove that part as soon as I am made aware of it.

GRANYIA