Kerry Photo Altered, Used for Political Attack (FR, Registered Mentioned)

Berkeley Daily Planet ^ | February 17, 2004 | Richard Brenneman

[Timesink]

A UC Berkeley journalism lecturer's 32-year-old photograph of future Democratic U.S. Senator and presidential candidate John Kerry has wound up in a forgery that suckered the New York Times.

Ken Light, head of the photojournalism program at UCB's Graduate School of Journalism, has found himself in the eye of a media and Internet storm after a clever forger inserted an image of Jane Fonda alongside his image of Kerry and posted the composite on the Internet.

[Hon]

Fonda-Kerry 1970s war protest photo declared false
THE GUARDIAN , WASHINGTON
Thursday, Feb 19, 2004,Page 6

A new dirty tricks campaign to embarrass Senator John Kerry backfired ignominiously on Tuesday when it emerged that a widely-circulated photograph of a protest against the Vietnam war was a crude forgery.

The photograph, falsely credited to the Associated Press, combined two separate images to make it appear as if Kerry shared a stage at an anti-war rally in the early 1970s with the actress, Jane Fonda.

Fonda is reviled by many Vietnam vets for her wartime visit to Hanoi, and the image was widely aired over the Internet by a fringe group of Vietnam veterans who have pursued a vendetta against Kerry for years.

In less than a week, the forgery traveled from a message board on a right wing Web site to a Vietnam veterans' mailing list to mainstream organizations. Two British national newspapers -- the Daily Mail and the Mail on Sunday -- used the photograph in editions on Friday last week and at the weekend.

The revelation that the picture was a fake follows the rumor that Kerry had had an affair with a young trainee reporter.

That claim, which started on the right wing Drudge report Web site, was largely ignored by American papers when it first surfaced, but was leapt on by some British newspapers.

On Monday the woman at the center of the furor, Alexandra Polier, issued a statement in which she denied ever having had a relationship with Kerry.

Inside the Kerry campaign, Democratic operatives said yesterday they were certain that the forged photograph would not be the last attempt to try to discredit their candidate's Vietnam war record.

"There are going to be a lot of dirty tricks in the campaign. It's like the story of the intern, which flew high as a kite before being shot down," said John Hurley, Kerry's campaign adviser on veterans' issues.

Although it is possible to trace the Fonda-Kerry forgery through the Internet, it was not clear yesterday who created the forged photograph.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2004/02/19/2003099319

[Scenic Sounds]

crude forgery.

Calling a work of art a "crude forgery" is nothing but a despicable smear!! I'll bet that this article was not written by the Guardian's Arts critic. It looks more like the work of some hack reporter. ;-)

[aculeus]

It wasn't an innocent mistake. And it screwed things up--big time!

Agree 100% and said so on this thread.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1076946/posts?page=157#157

[unsycophant]

Hon is a man posing as a woman now. Maybe you better knew him as Mojo (1998), a rabid 'antifreeper'. He seems to have given up trying to shut FR down, in favor of being able to participate here at FR. Don't they always? LOL.

I don't know how a man posing as a woman on a chat board will help the GOP--but I guess we'll find out. As Hon is quick to point out, (s)he "cares" about FR and only wants the best for the site, and that is what s/he is working for now. Who could argue with that?

In M*d we trust.

[spacewarp]

Hon, you're wayyyyyy to upset about this. You need to calm down a bit. The whole thing you're going to have to realize is that at least 50% of the new hits from papers like NYT and Berkley Fish Wrapper (O.K. Maybe 20% from Berkley) will come here to see what kind of place this is and find they like it and stay. And if they look hard enough (and most will), they'll find that Registered is an EXCELLENT artist when it comes to humoristic Photoshopping. Eventually, in the public's eye, those that remember the name Free Republic from the article will probably be interested. Those that don't wouldn't have cared about coming here anyway.

For the most part, FreeRepublic requires you to think. Liberals, for the most part, turn off the thinking, rational part of their minds. That's why they hate us so much.

Just stop and take a deep breath. The NYT and Berkley Mullet Wrapper wouldn't give us a fair shake anyway. Even if we had the smoking gun that blew the whole story out of the water about Kerry's Vietnam service, or his affairs, or anything. We could have a member who was Kerry's illegitimate love child here and they wouldn't believe it even with DNA and him looking just like Eddie Munster. So, just slow down Hon. I understand that you've done a lot to blow the top off this one. And that's great. Unfortunately, even if you did, they wouldn't pay attention, and would even bury the story because it came from a Freeper. I'd love to see someone like Tom Brokejaw or Dan Blather join just for the debate of it, and then someone in the elite media find out. There would be a destructive firestorm. The media would eat their own.

That's the nature of this beast. You've apparently either had a different handle or been a LONG time lurker. So, you can understand. We had stories about Clinton and Gore that should have had them thrown in jail. They were properly sourced and discussed at length. The lamestream media ignored them because they were from here.

As they say in Hollywierd, "No publicity is bad publicity". The negative connotation will go away very quickly. The name will last. Don't be too suprised to see an upsurge in members after the NYT revealing article and the other one posted on this thread.

Paul

[an amused spectator]

Great post, spacewarp. Before this campaign season, I thought we were making great progress against the mainstream media. After reviewing the last couple of months, I'm pretty much resigned to the fact that they're up to the same old tricks, and just as unaccountable as ever. We have to remember that they get paid to do the same thing that we do for free, and that we do for love of the truth. They're in it to effect social change, just as they were taught in their little journalism classes, and they know tha they have to protect their paychecks at all costs.

The issue we're discussing on this thread is the Senate Judiciary memos redux, only a few of the details have been changed. I see that there are a number of Freepers tempted to do the Orrin. "They won't like us anymore!!!", they wail. As you pointed out, they never liked us in the first place.

All we have to do to get back on track is ask ourselves: What Would The Connecticut Peach* Do?

She threw a beer can at the oh-so-pious ex-Senator from Georgia, and let the Left beat on her for a week. Then she clarified using the "beer" facts.

The facts about Kerry are still out there. Are the champions of those facts going snivel like Orrin, or slide in with their spikes up, like the Peach?

*Ann Coulter

[satchmodog9]

I saw Leno the other night and they were talking about the forged picture. I had only viewed this one and I thought this was the one they were talking about. I wonder how many other people still think this is the fake photo. Not everyone has FR to fall back on.

[ccmay]

He was packing his face full with a sandwich.

Nobody looks good while eating. In England, there is a law-- or at least an agreement by the press-- not to take or publish any pictures of the Royal Family while they are eating.

-ccm

[JoJo Gunn]

"You just seem to like to hear yourself type."

Time for your meds again, sugah?

[JoJo Gunn]

DANG!

[hemogoblin]

Just another favorite Kerry pic.

[JoJo Gunn]

I found it interesting that a newbie knew who Ken Styer was, and was able to answer a poster in 4 minutes time with a link to a thread from August 2000..

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1076946/posts?q=1&&page=301

[an amused spectator]

Fascinating. Took even me a few seconds after I read his synopsis.

[Spiff]

Registered's fake photo just appeared on Tech Live on TechTV. They interviewed Ken Light (the original leftist photographer) who blamed "Conservative Website's" for spreading it.

"Anything I see on the Internet, I question..." said Ken Light.

Reporter said that Corbis (online source of original photo) is owned by Bill Gates. Ken Light says they're investigating and if photo was misused then copyright lawsuit is in the works. Of course, I don't necessarily believe Ken Light.

The TechTV Tech Live website even mentions it in their online poll right now:

What's the top tech moment in the presidential race? Faked Kerry-Fonda photo 19% Dean scream remixes 64% Bush dental records online 17%

[unsycophant]

He has a lot of resources at his disposal, from his days as an antifreeper type.

[weegee]

The left didn't seem to be this outraged when the LA Slimes ran a doctored photo from Iraq that showed a US soldier holding his rifle in one hand and using the other to stop a refugee with his small child.

The photo was actually a composite of 2 separate photos (the soldier did not raise his hand to the refugee and the rifle was pointed in a different direction).

The LA Slimes apologized but the question is "who do you trust"? Registered's work is posted under humor on Strange Cosmos. LA Times feels so highly of their journalistic ideals that FR can only use excerpts of their work.

[weegee]

I think that DU trolls seized upon the opportunity to use this gag for their own propaganda purposes.

The photo never stayed on FR long but that is not the impression that the lying left is trying to give.

[atomicpossum]

That's terrible.

[cousair]

Here Here....the very best!!!

[KeyLargo]

Excellent commentary political cartoon by Jack Higgins. Go to: http://www.suntimes.com/index/commentary.html
Click "Higgins" line and scroll back to Chicago Sun-Times, Sunday February 22, 2004.