Archived posting to the Leica Users Group, 1999/09/14
[Author Prev] [Author Next] [Thread Prev] [Thread Next] [Author Index] [Topic Index] [Home] [Search]At 03:35 PM 9/14/99 -0400, Paul Schiemer wrote: >Or, as I remember, the staged photo of the flag raising on Iwo Jima (to end >up on the cover of Life, to become the model after which a famous sculpture >at Arlington is based. Didn't that win a Pulitzer too?? Here we go again. THAT WAS NOT A STAGED POHTO. Sorry for shouting, I wanted the hearing impaired to hear this one. :-) There have been faked stories win Pulitzers, but only once in the history of the contest was a nominated photograph ever questioned for "staging." I knew the man from journalism school who was accused of staging the photo. I did have a problem with what he did. He was in Angola during a civil war and a person was being beaten in a very dark room. He knew the man was going to die, and he knew he would die if he tried to stop it. So he asked them to move outside so he could get pictures. Amazingly, they did. I find this distasteful, but his motivation was that if the person was going to die, let his life at least bring some condemnation on his killers. No photo would have been made without that request. Easy to condemn him here, when we weren't there to know the victim and the perpetrators. He had been travelling with them and knew exactly what was going on. He was also condemned by many for carrying weapons while on assignment in Angola. It sort of implies that the journalist isn't neutral if he's wandering around with weapons, ready to take part in an assault or whatever. Again, I wasn't there. If I remember correctly, it was a group of photos that won the Pulitzer that year, and the one I remember seeing is of a group of men on their hands and feet being tortured by a man holding a gun to the head of a person in the foreground. Again, my books are put away, or I'd dig this up. The implication that staging of photos is rampant in the journalistic world only points out one thing. The accuser doesn't know us. It happens, about as often as physicians murder their patients. Not very. And yes, we gauge the veracity of the photojournalist. It's easy if you're his/her editor. Just look at the pictures. Set up pictures become obvious by the photos surrounding it. And this is a small, close-knit community. We know each other. Which is unfortunate, because I think familiarity often tilts contests in the favor of popular people. But there's nothing we can do about that. Contests aren't that important. The work is. BTW, I wasn't saying you meant to question the Pulitzer Judges, or AP, but that line of thinking leads to that. Eric Welch St. Joseph, MO http://www.ponyexpress.net/~ewelch Multitasking: Screwing up several things at once...