AP Calls Criticism of Pulitzer Win for Photos 'Deeply Offensive'

[Rose Siding]

NEW YORK As always, not everyone in the press and on the Web agrees with the selection of Pulitzer Prize winners, announced earlier this week. But what’s relatively rare is that criticism surrounding one choice this year has a partisan edge.

The Pulitzer Board anointed 11 Associated Press photographers as winners in the category of breaking-news photography. The award-winning photos were from war-torn Iraq -- and some in conservative circles claim the images were, on the whole, overly helpful to the insurgent cause. At least one of the photos raised an uproar from the same quarters when it was first published late last year.

According to a count by The Jawa Report site, “11 of the 20 photos would likely cause anti-American inflammation. Only two show Americans in a positive light.” By a count on another blog, called Riding Sun, three photos reveal U.S. troops “looking overwhelmed or uncertain,” two showed “Iraqis celebrating attacks on U.S. forces,” and zero featured U.S. forces “looking heroic.”

Columnist Michelle Malkin and the popular Powerline blog, meanwhile, returned to the controversy over the widely published AP photo of terrorists executing Iraqi election workers in Baghdad. Malkin asked on Tuesday if the Pulitzer judges were “ignorant of the controversy.” Powerline called the award a "Pulitzer Prize for felony murder." Last December it had charged that “the terrorists wanted to be photographed carrying out the murder, to sow more terror in Iraq and to demoralize American voters. That’s why they tipped off the photographer, and that’s why they dragged the two election workers from their car, so they could be shot in front of the AP’s obliging camera.”

http://www.mediainfo.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1000873117


A winning photo by Jim MacMillan.

...worth a thousand words

[Fenris]

1. "Powerline" sounds like some sort of Christian bodybuilding site.

Who gives a fuck what right-wing blogs think?

[Call me Deacon Blues]

2. Check this out . .

A good analysis of the photos.

http://www.deadparrots.net/archives/media/0501media_critics_haifa_street_execution_photo_edition.html#more

[kliljedahl]

3. Michelle Malkin?

I'm starting to think she's even loonier than Ann "The Man" Coulter, & even uglier if that's possible.


http://www.kliljedahl.net

[leftchick]

4. Jim MacMillan and ALL of the Photographers in Iraq are heros...

They have been the ones telling the real story from there. poop on the so called journalists. (except of course Robert Fisk and the like).
Personally I live for these photos to find out wtf is going on!

As far as the "helpful to the insurgent cause" BS... The US Military leaders are doing a fine job in that area without photogs. Hello, How many women are being held hostage by the US right now??

[Rose Siding]

6. How 'bout the AP taking a stand on this?

That's something.

[leftchick]

8. indeed...

seems to be a little break in the wall. I hope it falls.

[DemoTex]

9. Photo journalists and Seymour Hersch brought down Vietnam.

Many more great journalists too. But it was a few great pictures and Hersch's exposure of My Lai-4 that brought the walls tumbling down. That's a fact, Jack.

[leftchick]

10. Thanks Demo! I agree...

I Love my Vietnam Vets. Did I ever tell you I worked in a VA hospital for 5 years in the 80's. I saw a Lot of bad things. You fellows and gals are my heros. :)

[DemoTex]

12. Thanks leftchick ..

We love you too! We all know that the news from the war in Iraq is suppressed. Severely suppressed. News from the 'Nam was suppressed and censored, but not even close to the magnitude of THIS SHIT!
We are witnessing the total disintegration of the USA before our very eyes in the short time-span of the Bu$h rule. It is unbelievable. It will only get ultra-worse. Let's fight the fuckers to the end. OK?

[dand]

22. Many thanks, I just applied to VVAW

USMC '61-'66,

[Daphne08]

15. That's exactly right. I remember it well!

[Merlin]

19. Right you are, Bro. But I've never quite trusted Sy Hersch.

Yes, he's exposed some great stuff. But he's also a player. In the My Lai episode, for example, word is that he was actually asked by insiders at the Pentagon to do an expose that would have credibility but would tell the abominable story in as positive a way possible -- precisely because it was about to break anyhow. One of the chopper pilots, forget his name, was the true hero. He had DEROSed, come home, opted out, and spent 2 years trying to find media people who would pick up on it. Word is a huge expose' was in the works when the Hersh story broke.

Okay, who knows, maybe that's just crap, but...

Hersh's ugly depiction of JFK has always troubled me.

It seems to me the deal is he has close ties inside the Gon and CIA. They use him to fight some internal battles. His expose' of the horrific deal we made with Pakistan in Konduz, allowing some 3,000 al Quaida escape while we held our ground for 4 days, having surrounded the city, is an example of where that works for us, and it's commendable.

On the other hand, his Abu Graib 2 photo expose' is an example of where he will roll over on command, too. He announced, last June I believe, that he had seen a whole new set of photos on AG that were way more grotesque than the first, and were about to be released. But it never happened. And Sy never spoke of it again.

[Kimber Scott]

5. I hope the Right finally pisses the media off. They've been pissing on

them long enough.

[DeepModem Mom]

11. How I wish our free press would rise up...

with courage, unafraid of the cabal.

[manic expression]

7. Wow. Just pathetic

Maybe the reason why US soldiers are not portrayed as "heroic" is because they ARE NOT!!!! Maybe they are part of war crimes (even if you support the troops, it is undeniable that they are part of it), and photos will show this!

"Well, I just saw Hotel Rwanda, and I was deeply offended that the Interhamwe (those carrying out the genocide) were portrayed so negatively!".....(sarcasm was in full effect there)

[Kerrytravelers]

13. Unless the pictures were of * with a glorious beam of light in the shape

of a halo annointing his infalliable head, there is no way the likes of Malakin and the bots would ever approve.

They must be glorified at all times.

[daleo]

14. Only pictures of soldiers giving candy to kids to be allowed.

The overt demand for positive propaganda gets scarier by the day. These people would have been happy in Hitler's Germany or Stalin's Soviet Union.

[Up2Late]

16. "...photos would likely cause anti-American inflammation..."

NO, Invading their Country, turning their cities to rubble, and blowing up members of their family, in a war basted on a giant, WMD Lie, did that!

People who write on RW Hate site are morons.:mad:

[Judi Lynn]

17. MORANS. It's "MORANS!" Spelling, PLEASE!

[Up2Late]

21. Sorry, I usually do, but it was getting late.

I'll work on it.

[leftchick]

18. Another Photo from 4/6 telling a story....

An Iraq woman kisses wounded Ayad Abdul Mehdi in a Baghdad, Iraq hospital Wednesday, April 6, 2005. Abdul Mehdi said he was shot by U.S. troops when he suddenly came on their patrol while driving in Baghdad Wednesday.(AP Photo/Hadi Mizban)

[Merlin]

20. We need a think tank to plan how to make this issue come to the forefront.

This is the kind of thing the right has think tanks for. We don't. They would spend hundreds of thousands of dollars having their guys work out plans to force an issue like this into the spotlight in a way that would work to their advantage.

The issue is as clear as a bell, and it is EXTREMELY important:

In war, does the US media have a duty to insulate the American people from the truth?

Most of us think the answer is NO. But there are good arguments both ways.

What if it's something not known by our "enemy" that further pisses off the indigenous people whose loyalty we claim we're trying to gain?

What if it's a horrible but atypical crime some US GI commits?

The answers are not all easy.

One thing we can say for certain though is:

If our "enemy" knows about it already, and the indigenous people of the occupied country know about it already, then THE US PRESS HAS A DUTY TO TELL THE AMERICAN PEOPLE!

There must be some way we can get that point, at least, into the public forum. A test case we could mobilize behind and make a controversy of would be the perfect way to do it.