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Posted on 08/01/2006 2:03:55 PM PDT by Brian Mosely
NEW YORK (AP) — Three news agencies on Tuesday rejected challenges to the veracity of photographs of bodies taken in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon, strongly denying that the images were staged.
Photographers from The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse all covered rescue operations Sunday in Qana, where 56 Lebanese were killed. Many of their photos depicted rescue workers carrying dead children.
A British Web site, the EU Referendum blog, built an argument that chicanery may have been involved by citing time stamps that went with captions of the photographs.
For example, the Web site draws attention to a photo by AP’s Lefteris Pitarakis time stamped 7:21 a.m., showing a dead girl in an ambulance. Another picture, stamped 10:25 a.m. and taken by AP’s Mohammed Zaatari, shows the same girl being loaded onto the ambulance. In a third, by AP photographer Nasser Nasser and stamped 10:44 a.m., a rescue worker carries the girl with no ambulance nearby.
The site suggests these events were staged for effect, a criticism echoed by talk show host Rush Limbaugh when he directed listeners to the blog on Monday.
“These photographers are obviously willing to participate in propaganda,” Limbaugh said. “They know exactly what’s being done, all these photos, bringing the bodies out of the rubble, posing them for the cameras, it’s all staged. Every bit of it is staged and the still photographers know it.”
The AP said information from its photo editors showed the events were not staged, and that the time stamps could be misleading for several reasons, including that web sites can use such stamps to show when pictures are posted, not taken. An AFP executive said he was stunned to be questioned about it. Reuters, in a statement, said it categorically rejects any such suggestion.
“It’s hard to imagine how someone sitting in an air-conditioned office or broadcast studio many thousands of miles from the scene can decide what occurred on the ground with any degree of accuracy,” said Kathleen Carroll, AP’s senior vice president and executive editor.
Carroll said in addition to personally speaking with photo editors, “I also know from 30 years of experience in this business that you can’t get competitive journalists to participate in the kind of (staging) experience that is being described.”
Photographers are experienced in recognizing when someone is trying to stage something for their benefit, she said.
“Do you really think these people would risk their lives under Israeli shelling to set up a digging ceremony for dead Lebanese kids?” asked Patrick Baz, Mideast photo director for AFP. “I’m totally stunned by first the question, and I can’t imagine that somebody would think something like that would have happened.”
The AP had three different photographers there who weren’t always aware of what the others were doing, and filed their images to editors separately, said Santiago Lyon, director of photography.
There are also several reasons not to draw conclusions from time stamps, Lyon said. Following a news event like this, the AP does not distribute pictures sequentially; photos are moved based on news value and how quickly they are available for an editor to transmit.
The AP indicates to its members when they are sent on the wire, and member Web sites sometimes use a different time stamp to show when they are posted.
Transcript of Rush's comments:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/1675906/posts
It's been SOP from the beginning of the current "intifada". It would only be surprising if they were not staging propagada photos.
Bull. A couple of reporters were convicted of paying children to throw rocks at British tanks in Northern Ireland. I think it was 15 to 20 years ago.
It the news agencies they represent attempt to hide their actions and shield them, those organizations are supporting terrorists and should be treated accordingly under our laws.
There is no journalistic need to these news agencies to not provide these pictures along with information on how and when they were taken to investigators. Reporting such information is what they are supposed to do, and since they took the photographs, they don't have any reasonable arguments that they are protecting a confidential source.
The evidence is obvious and I don't think Israel needs to sit and gather it for a court of law, they just need to take them out and be done with it.
But who is being referred to, i.e. "these people"? The Hezbos or the "journalists"?
The old media will print photos of World Trade Center victims the same day they publish photos of aborted babies.
And it's a bad idea to claim the reporters knew about the staging. Maybe one or two did, but most reporters are incredibly gullible, willing to believe anything Hezzbollah spoon feeds them through their assigned minders. And even if they knew, they'd never admit it. Bad axis of attack.
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And why do we keep hearing "mostly children" when I heard it was 23 out of the over 50.
Caught red-handed.
It's all Dan's fault, doncha know!
This was the original link.
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/07/milking-it.html
Someone needs to do some investigating into this 'time date' issue and see if there is any merit in it.
Someone also needs to do a complex analysis of the clothing changing and missing radios and all this. If someone does this, please ping me to it, I'd be interested in hearing the results one way or the other. :)
FRmail me to be added or removed from this Judaic/pro-Israel/Russian Jewry ping list.
Warning! This is a high-volume ping list.
oh and the orginal times should be on the journalist digital cameras. Wonder if the agencies would give that info out to put this to rest...
Many of these news organizations are if not directly headquartered in the US, have a large presence in the US. If they are aiding terrorists in violation of our laws, they should be held accountable under those laws.
While the evidence is pretty obvious to those willing to see it, Israel may be better off detaining the "journalists" who commit the most blatant offenses, and then prosecuting them in criminal courts rather than taking the more direct route of shooting them.
There's risks on the political side to any action Israel takes, and while this is a military conflict it is also a political one as well, and a sustainable victory likely depends more on political victory since Israel has no shortage of enemies.
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