October 06, 2007
When Any Bombing Photo Will Do
I don't know much about the "World News Network," but I can tell them this: if you're going to write a story about people killed in bombings during Ramadan in Iraq, it is probably best that you don't use a picture from a March truck bombing in Tal Afar.
Update: As noted in the comments this photo apparently came from--where else?-- a Reuters feed. At least that gave the military photographer, Chris Brogan, the credit.
Are you really surprised? It appears to be a Reuters feed in the World News article.
Posted by: Sara at October 6, 2007 10:03 PMit is a Reuter's feed and they even gave photo credit -- (photo: US Army file/Sgt. 1st Class Robert C. Brogan)-- which I recall Reuter's got busted in recent past not photo crediting Military image shots.
Posted by: Topsecretk9 at October 6, 2007 11:15 PMGreat catch, CY. And nice follow up, Topsecretk9.
Posted by: Dusty at October 6, 2007 11:27 PMThanks Dusty, but Sara pointed out that it was a Reuters feed...
You should really take a gander at the World News Network slide show feed associated with the story - I could swear that image #2 of a truck bombing is one of the guy who shot 43,984 children behind broken glass or the same broken door in different months ( from like March or Feb), but on whole the slideshow captions are pointing to good news in Iraq - my guess, using general imagery to capture the stories.
They still shouldn't do this though on EVENT type stories, it's dangerous no matter which point of view. I'm agnostic a little bit on human interest stories if it's not egregious.
Nevermind. It's wrong on all fronts.
Posted by: topsecretk9 at October 7, 2007 01:10 AMYeah, sorry I missed that Sara.
About the photographers, Topsecretk9, pretty much all of the stringers take do the "through the hole" pictures. You may be referring to Wissam al-Okaili, of magic bullet fame, though. He stands out for me having looked through all his photos and seing dozens of them, but that may be because I searched his archive and not those of others.
As for the crediting of photos, I can't remember Reuters not doing it. The BBC didn't (doesn't?) which was caused by AFP, and it appeared, from my review at least, that the problem was a system wide breakdown by wire services and MSM in taking 'free to use' military photos and loading them for subscriber use and then wanting credit for making them available in their own service. Thus, the original sources were disconnected from the photos.
As CY notes, they appear to be righting that wrong now.
Posted by: Dusty at October 7, 2007 12:20 PMPicky, picky, picky! All victims look the same to the media. What did you expect, truth?
Posted by: AST at October 9, 2007 12:53 AM
