{"id":750,"date":"2004-04-19T21:42:53","date_gmt":"2004-04-19T21:42:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/?p=750"},"modified":"2004-04-19T21:42:53","modified_gmt":"2004-04-19T21:42:53","slug":"when-pictures-become-news","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tommangan.net\/printsthechaff\/2004\/04\/when-pictures-become-news\/","title":{"rendered":"When pictures become news"},"content":{"rendered":"

Newsdesigner shows the Seattle Times Sunday front page.<\/a> I’m guessing it took the editors at the Times about three thousandths of a second to decide on their lead art.
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The objective description: some people in an airplane’s cargo hold tend to a bunch of boxes decorated by American flags. No drama, no emotion, no action, just men at work. It does have nice colors, though, which makes it a candidate for any page where the press configuration allows four-color. From a purely photographic standpoint, it’s nothing special.
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This is one of those rare photos whose primary value is what it doesn’t show: the dead American soliders inside those boxes. You don’t have to see mutilated corpses to understand the cost of war. There’s plenty to see within that airplane’s fuselage.
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So, yeah, it’s a storytelling photo. But what’s the story? That we’re shipping our dead home by airplane? Everybody who cares already knows that. That our soldiers have been dying in a war? Given the hornet’s nest they’re serving in, it could be argued that the biggest news is not how many are dead, but how many are still alive.
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The Times’ editors provided all the standard “hey, this is news, it’s a compelling image” reasoning, which was true to the extent I’ve outlined here, but they’re telling only the side of the story which reflects most kindly on them.
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There’s another story here that isn’t so high-minded. It’s about how we go with a photo like that because we have it <\/i>and we’re reasonably certain nobody else does<\/i>. And because we know the authorities don’t want us to publish it.<\/i> The Pentagon\/White House have forbidden us from taking pictures of coffins arriving home from the war, which instantly puts the thought in my head, “I’m running the first good flag-draped coffin pic I get, just to show those bastards they can’t tell me what pictures I put in my paper.”
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It’s true that the picture is a scoop in the sense that (I presume) it’s the first planeload-of-coffins pic to land in the Times hands. But it’s not really news that this is happening — it only becomes news when they have a picture of it.
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This will always happen, it’s the nature of the business. Still, I think people will respect us a lot more if we dump the pieties and just tell ’em: “look, it was a great scoop, and you’d have done the same if you’d been in my shoes.” Otherwise we sound like politicians making the usual empty pronouncements.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Newsdesigner shows the Seattle Times Sunday front page. I’m guessing it took the editors at the Times about three thousandths of a second to decide on their lead art. The objective description: some people in an airplane’s cargo hold tend…<\/p>\n

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