The actual truth the "unaltered" picture with mike/stand would have told us was that it portrayed a female entertainer either talking or singing to the troops. Since "strippers" don't perform with microphones and stands on their stage, none of the readers would have thought that she was a stripper. But that "truth" would not have supported the salacious story the NY Times was trying to sell ie "strippers entertain the troops in Iraq"
I would think that a mike stand would be a reasonable substitute for a pole if the stripper were a pole dancer, as most are today. This does not mean the girl was a stripper, just that the presence or absence of the mike and its stand is no eveidence one way or the other about the girl's performance.