Ben Apfelbaum

A Festival of Fraudulent Facts

Recently  the Bondi Pavilion hosted a talk with the title of FRAUDULENT FACTS, HOAX HEADLINES AND MALICIOUS MEDIA.

 Jan Fran, Alex McKinnon,Sandra Sully, John Barron

Images by Ben Apfelbaum

Presented by the Mark and Evett Moran Nib Literary Award and  the Walkeley Foundation, it an expert channel of journalists including John Barron, Sandra Sully, Alex McKinnon, and hosted by journalist  Jan Fran.

The consensus of the Panel seemed to be that in order to keep reporting quality stories the panelists relied on tried and tried sources and in local crime news, police media reports rather fantastical social media.

The panelists lamented that some people in the community held misguided views such as the denial of climate and the link between autism and vaccinations.

The more you presented these people with objective facts and scientific studies, the more they doubled down on their prejudices.

The panel sought to present quality news to their target audiences who hopefully were sufficiently open minded to receive their accurate news reports.

More information about Fraudulent Facts, Hoax Headlines and Malicious Media :  http://www.waverley.nsw.gov.au/recreation/calendar_of_events/events/fraudulent_facts,_hoax_headlines_and_malicious_media

Published by Ben Apfelbaum

My photography began when my father handed me the proverbial brownie box camera as a child. As cameras developed I went through Fujica and Olympus range finders graduating to my first single lens reflex camera, the Minolta SRT101, the latter being the greatest facilitator to my growth as a photographer. Digital photography has only added to this. I was a regular contributor to Camera Craft magazine (Australian Camera ) for over three years. During Australia’s Bicentennial year (1988) I made it a personal project to document the celebrations. This culminated in the creation of a book of my photos which was published in 1989. The book was called CELEBRATING AUSTRALIA and came with an accompanying calendar. My works have appeared in a number of publications including the coffee book entitled MY AUSTRALIA (1989), publisher Robertsbridge Severn. This book had a preface by the then Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawke. I was a co-photographer on a book entitled SYDNEY- DISCOVER THE CITY with text written by Robert Treborland. Major Mitchell Press was the publisher. Also for two years I was the photographer for calendars celebrating Sydney’s multicultural communities. The two calendars were entitled MULTICULTURAL SYDNEY. My work appeared in a group exhibition held at Sydney’s Town Hall pertaining to the diversity of life in South America to raise money for orphanages there. I have over one hundred photos stored in the New South Wales State Library archive. I had a solo exhibition held in 2007 entitled Ben’s Lens at the Sydney Jewish Museum which celebrated the vibrancy of the Sydney Jewish community. Some of these photos are on the Museum’s permanent display. I have exhibited internationally firstly at the Spruill Gallery in Atlanta Georgia, united states, and in an exhibition entitled Kosher and Co at the Jewish Museum in Berlin. Currently I am a regular contributor to J-Wire and this esteemed publication.