A fitting tribute

Nothing captures the drama and spirit of an event like this as video does.

The rescue of the 33 Chilean miners trapped for two months in a mine in the Atacama desert was "made for television," said one kibitzer. I think it was made to be captured and shared on video at the very least, because I am not sure if there is any prime time news program that would air the full 14-minute or so video of each miner being brought to the surface.

On Philippine news, this would have been cut up to about 2 minutes, to augment the voice overs accompanying the newscast. Editorial judgment on which video images to use will be made, and I am willing to bet that only 3-5 of the faces of the 33 miners would be shown. Not that the newscast has any real choice: the nature and form of the news dictates it. The time limit, standards and requirements of video that will help "tell" the story, and the visual hook it needs to keep the audience watching necessitate sifting through the material, choosing and discarding the rest.

However, thanks to the web, we are able to see ALL of their faces. Here they are all identified, which, I think is the proper tribute to be paid to these men. This video was from the CNN website, and I'm glad they wrote in the names of the miners.

Still, it must be noted, the video was edited for brevity. In this instance it was edited precisely to show miners' names and faces. It's another question if there would be any venue or platform that will run the 33 hours (if it exists) of rescue video.