Snapped Shot

Always Watching the All-Seeing Eye

 

It's All About the Context

By Brian C. Ledbetter · Wednesday, December 12. 2007 08:58
I always enjoy getting e-mails from readers, but every now and then, one of y'all put things in a way that I couldn't even hope to improve upon. Here's one such e-mail, courtesy Erik W., who has written to point out one of my personal pet peeves—Articles that discuss a positive aspect of any given issue, that are packed with photographs that illustrate said issue in the negative:

Spot the Context (click to zoom)
Saw this on yahoo, seems like something you might be interested in, being an abuse of photojournalism and all. Article title: "Poll: More in US see progress in Iraq"

[link: news.yahoo.com]

Notice the photo following the headline. Caption: "An injured Iraqi girl is treated by medics from 1st Battalion, 30th Infantry Regiment at..."

If they were more honest with themselves they'd just say, "More people think the war is making progress. In related news, more people are wrong." Or possibly, "More people think the war is making progress. However, this poor, innocent Iraqi girl ruthlessly mutilated by the crusaders would beg to differ."

I know, I know, examples of bias like this are a dime a dozen... For some reason this one really angered me, though, and I had to let someone know, if you know what I mean.

Also, congrats on the finals, you lucky bastard. My last one is on Thursday.

Cheers,
Erik W.
In Yahoo!'s defence, I will say that there's a good chance that the photograph in question was automatically selected from the Yahoo! Iraq Photos slideshow, which is itself an automatically-generated collection of pictures from a collection of news photo wires. (It's not unusual to see stories about the other Lebanon in the Lebanon Photos group, for example.) That's not to say that this type of bias doesn't happen in the non-automated portion of the news world, though.

Still, it's not like positive photos of Iraq are all that hard to find.

Thanks for writing, Erik! And good luck with your final on Thursday!
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Here is what a handful of random people think about this article. But first, the fine print:
The opinions expressed here, even where approved for display, do not necessarily reflect the opinions of this website, the management, or any other entity or organization, with the exception of the Vast Zionist Conspiracy. Those opinions we represent in style, yo. Please keep the language in these comments clean, as this is intended to be a family-friendly, work-friendly website. Comments not compliant with this policy will be edited for content where necessary. Abusive or otherwise illegal comments will be reported to the proper authorities, up to and including the aforementioned Vast Zionist Conspiracy. The Management cannot and will not be held responsible for commenters making a spectacle of themselves, even if The Management are the said commenters in question. In other words, don't take yourself so seriously, folks. We're all here to discuss the news, and more importantly, to have fun. Now go get yourself into some OCD treatment program—you obviously need it if you actually read all of this mess.

Yishai on 2007-12-12 15:59 #1
*I thought it also ironic that the first sidebar item of this AP article was about the AP photographer indicted for terrorism. heh.
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Brian C. Ledbetter on 2007-12-13 08:53 #2
*Yishai,

Haha, I didn't even notice that! It sure does add to ye irony, indeed. :-)

Regards,
Brian
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