Sloppy photo research at CNN Headline News

NASAWatch ^

[Sloth]

That's okay. You're still a genius compared to a CNN staffer.

[Republican Red]

I called CNN viewer line at 404-827-0234 and blasted them.

The guy that answered didn't believe me but when I read what the Nasa website was reporting he got serious and said he would let people know.

I told him I was amazed at the lack of journalistic ability to even research the photos.

[Republican Red]

I emailed Drudge earlier your link to Nasa. They have detailed who used the photos and when. Drudge must have been inundated with the NASA link cause he is referring to it now in his headline.

Good catch!

[Frank_Discussion]

Thanks, but credit for the catch goes to Keith Cowing of NASA Watch, I just made the hand-off!

Another thing that kills me about this who thing is that Deputy NASA Administrator Fred Gregory is a fairly high-profile guy, and very recognizable. His mug was all over the place in the photos, and none of the CNN folks noticed. Even if they didn't know exactly who it was, you would think somebody would've said: "Hey, he looks familiar. Who is that guy?"

CNN and apparently a lot of other "journalists" have something other than "journalism" on their minds...

[Mr.Atos]

Isn't CNN the same set of media bozos that announced the discovery of "a fragment of burned spacecraft" in a Texas pasture that they "believed to have come from the Space Shuttle Columbia!"

Or it might very well have been a piece of some other crashed spacecraft???

If there is such a thing as 'discount news', CNN certainly represents a disposable product, lacking value, that is just like the real thing, yet different.

[Republican Red]

Without the hand-off there would be no play!

According to Drudge, the NASA sent word out yesterday about the true identity of the coffins.

Without getting the word out, the media would still be misusing these pictures.

[M0sby]

The Seattle Times PISSE$ me off!
They say they had every right to publish these pictures because the weren't from a reporter, they were from a private citizen... How about some compassion?
Oh, how I would have FUMED if I were one of the parents/wife/children of these fallen troops.
I understand that they said they were trying to show the compassion and professionalism with which the bodies were treated. THEY ARE OH SO PROFESSIONAL AT THE TIMES that they didn't ask first~~


Gr......

[Frank_Discussion]

Keep up the good fight, y'all. I gotta go. Have a great weekend!

[WOSG]

Hmmm, so the war in Iraq caused the Columbia shuttle explosion?

[kcvl]

The Pentagon does not allow the media to cover the arrival of soldiers' coffins on military bases. That policy forces news editors, like Jeffersonville Evening News Jim Nichols, to balance First Amendment rights with possibly offending readers. "There's a philosophy in newsrooms -- when in doubt, leave it out. When I saw those, I was really doubtful, those would not have appeared in my paper."

The sensitivity of the war hit home for Nichols last Friday. A reader blasted him when he ran a political cartoon showing U.S. soldiers digging their own graves. "I don't know anybody in this war personally," he says, but added that "a lot of people out there do, and that's what I have to keep in mind."

It's a lesson that not everything's fit for print.

[JLO]

You're the first one today that I've read mentioning where the majority of the photos came from that was all over internet news today. Not including the poster that posted the pics.

I first saw the multiple photos on several TV channels this morning. And currently at google news, it's still a headline story at their site. 519 stories about it.

CBC News
Pentagon angered by photos of war dead
MLive.com - 10 hours ago
DOVER, Del. (AP) Photographs of flag-draped coffins bearing American casualties from Iraq should not have been made public under a Pentagon policy prohibiting media coverage of human remains, officials said.
Not for public eyes Straits Times
A grim reminder of war Omaha World Herald
Guardian - CBC News - Fort Wayne News Sentinel - Washington Post

- and 519 related »

[kcvl]

Family sees photographer as 'mom to fallen boys'

By Rachel Tuinstra
Times Snohomish County bureau

EVERETT — Tami Silicio had warned her sons they might be receiving some phone calls from reporters. But Will Taylor, 21, was still caught off guard yesterday when the phone started ringing at 6 a.m.

It was CNN wanting to interview him about the photograph his mother took of flag-draped coffins on a cargo plane waiting to leave Kuwait — the photograph that got her fired from a job with Maytag Aircraft, a military contractor.

That wake-up call gave Taylor the first inkling of the whirlwind he and his family were in for.

By evening, Taylor was watching himself on network news, and two of his aunts, a grandmother, a cousin and an uncle were on a plane to New York for an appearance on ABC's "Good Morning America."


http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2001910577_family23m.html


The picture hasn't dissuaded Taylor from his plan to join the Marines in September.

"I've been planning to go into the Marines for a long time," he said. "I know she (Silicio) will be proud of me for going in."

[Ichneumon]

The Sound of Music has the Von Trapps crossing from Austria into Switzerland, which share no borders.

Are you sure about that?

[Rocky]

Switzerland? LOL.

[thunderdome]

I see that Antiwar has the whole series of FOIA released photos from Dover AFB at:

http://www.antiwar.com/doverimages/gallery.htm

..with this note:

NASA is stating that the first 18 rows of photographs in this archive are of honors rendered to the dead from the Space Shuttle Columbia disaster on February 1, 2003. At the time of this writing (20:02 EST on April 23, 2004) it is believed that photographs 73 and on are of Iraq war casualties.


April 23, 2004
Bob Jacobs
Headquarters, Washington
(Phone: 202/358-1600)

NOTE TO EDITORS: n04-059

COLUMBIA CREW MISTAKENLY IDENTIFIED AS IRAQI WAR CASUALTIES

Many news organizations across the country are mistakenly identifying the flag-draped caskets of the
Space Shuttle Columbia's crew as those of war casualties from Iraq.

Editors are being asked to confirm that the images used in news reports are in fact those of
American casualties and not those of the NASA astronauts who were killed Feb.1, 2003, in the
Columbia tragedy.

An initial review of the images featured on the Internet site www.thememoryhole.org shows that more
than 18 rows of images from Dover Air Force Base in Delaware are actually photographs of honors
rendered to Columbia's seven astronauts.

News organizations across the world have been publishing and distributing images featured on the web
site.


-end-

[hunter112]

what happens at the "light barrier"?

The shuttle goes back in time far enough for the crew to kill the idiot who was going to use the eco-nut-safe foam that broke off and damaged the craft.

That's the way it should have happened.

[weegee]

Snopes is leftist biased. Let's see them cover this bit of Bushhasser shame.

[LoudRepublicangirl]

In their propaganda-fueled haste to smear the issue of U.S, war dead in the DOD's face and ours, they flubbed it, and badly. D*mn sloppy if you ask me, and it betrays their nasty agenda.

No, it's their attempt to halt anymore space exploration. I hear they hate it almost as much as they hate the war on terror.

[hollywood]

A few of the (liberal-leaning) companies that frequently advertise on CNN ought to be sent these pictures of idiocy. Let them know that this is one of the reasons CNN is tanking and Fox is rising.

[ReignOfError]

D*mn sloppy if you ask me, and it betrays their nasty agenda.

Does Matt Drudge have the same nasty agenda? He had a photo of an astronaut's hearse at the top of his site most of Thursday and right on into Monday.

http://www.drudgereportarchives.com/data/2004/04/22/20040422_213403.htm

He was apparently too busy gloating over the mainstream media's error to acknowledge his own. But, then, he never does.

Is the Voice of America in on the conspiracy? They illustrated the story at http://www.voanews.com/article.cfm?objectID=4B03B9E7-2A99-49AB-8EB40A16225B1D36 with the same photo CNN used.