Al-France Propaganda in Iraq (updated)
Here’s a caption:
An elderly Iraqi woman shows two bullets which she says hit her house following an early coalition forces raid in the predominantly Shiite Baghdad suburb of Sadr City. At least 175 people were slaughtered on Tuesday and more than 200 wounded when four suicide truck bombs targeted people from an ancient religious sect in northern Iraq, officials said.(AFP/Wissam al-Okaili)
First, why does a photo caption about something that happened in Sadr City include news about an entirely unrelated terrorist attack outside Mosul? Second, what’s wrong with the accompanying picture?
The photo was offered for print, e-mail and sale here. I’d suggest that Wissam al-Okaili join Reuters’ Adnan Hajj in the unemployment queue, but one has to note that a halfway intelligent and observant photo editor at Agence France-Presse should really have spotted this one. It’s not exactly subtle.
Update: Oh look, the page I linked to magically disappeared. I did save the picture itself, suspecting something like this might happen. Luckily, The Autonomist saved a copy of the original page (in PDF), with the original caption. Ace of Spaces points out that the photo is now stored at Getty Images, where it has a “corrected” caption. Meanwhile, Suitably Flip has a sneak peek at tomorrow’s AFP news photo of the day.
Update: This “elderly woman” (or someone much like her) has a lot of bullets thrown at her. The other day, her house got hit. A month ago, her bed got hit. And guess who was on hand to capture the moment? None other than Wissam al-Okaili. The caption this time, according to Texans for Peace, an end-the-war website, is:
An Iraqi elderly woman inspects a bullet which she says hit her bed during an overnight raid by US and Iraqi troops in Sadr City, Baghdad. Residents said two people were killed and four wounded during the raid on July 10. (AFP/Wissam al-Okaili). July 14, 2007
BlackFive documents various sightings of what appears to be the same woman. She’s getting around. Much like the well-mannered, sincere and dedicated Islamic Rage Boy.
I guess the coalition force’s guns must have jammed and the soldiers resorted to throwing the bullets.
;-)
I do not think the photo is genuine, either, ut my reasons are different from yours. One thing at a time:
>>>> “why does a photo caption about something that happened in Sadr City include news about an entirely unrelated terrorist attack outside Mosul?”
AFP often include tangentanially related stuff in the summaries that accompany the photos. If you scroll through the yahoo photo reels (where the photo was poriginally shown) and you’ll see the captions often include Iraq stuff that doesn’t relate directly to the image. No conspiracy there.
>>>> “The other day, her house got hit. A month ago, her bed got hit.”
I doubt it is the same woman. The woman in the first photograph (more recent) has different blemishes on her face, the skin on her hands is less leathery and taut. Plenty of ugly old women in Iraq, after all.
>>>> “what’s wrong with the accompanying picture?”
What’s wrong with it is that it is fake, but not in the way you think. Wissam al-Okaili is a talented photographer, but the photograph has virtually no artistic merit - poorly composed, focused, no focal point, drab colour, the woman staring off to one side, no ‘texture.’ Compare it to the earlier picture, and you’ll see the difference. THE MORE RECENT PICTURE IS A FAKE. I suspect someone has taken a detail from a photograph by al-Okaili and photo-shopped the hand - or at least the bullets - onto it. HTe bullets look out of proportion and I doubt it would be feasible to hold them like that, unless the woman has the longest and strongest thumbs in the world.
I don’t know who would want to pepetrate this hoax but I doubt it was al-Okaili - there are plenty of old crones and genuine spent bullets in Iraq, why would he need to do it?
Ah, the dreaded lurgee. Welcome. How is your splendid isle?
You make some good points. The first is fair comment. I have noticed the same. That it happens as a matter of course doesn’t make it right, though. I find it a somewhat dubious practice, which permits all sorts of subtle editorialising, by associating the subject of a photograph (or its emotional content) with something it doesn’t actually portray. I know editorialising is fashionable these days, but I’d like to think I can expect better from news bureaux.
The second point I can’t dispute. The women look similar, the same photographer took them, the date and location were the same, and the stories sounded similar, but they may indeed be two different women.
On the third point I’m not at all convinced. I’m no expert at analysing photographs, but the composition and pose makes it appear the photographer was part of a group of media crowding around the woman. This would strengthen, rather than weaken, the suspicion that it was staged. If the hand and bullets were photoshopped onto the background picture, it is even more curious that the woman’s face is so out of focus. In any case the job was so expertly done that it appears to have left no artifacts at all:
That’s not firm evidence, of course, but even if it was a hoax, some crucial questions remain that cast doubt on AFP’s competence and objectivity. How did a fraudster manage to slip a bylined photograph into their production system?
And how did AFP editors, who surely have seen a few war photographs before, not spot the most obvious problem with the photograph, namely that the bullets that they claimed hit the woman’s house were not spent?
Occam’s Razor would suggest that the shoot was staged, as many are in warzones, and that either the photo editors were predisposed to believe the prejudicial caption, or they introduced the blatant error while writing a fictional caption themselves.
I am glad to see my reputation precedes me. I’ve always wanted to be “dreaded.” Thoguh I think you might be mixing me up with someone else.
If you are correct about the circumstances in which the photo was taken, the fault is with whoever wrote the caption, not al-Okaili. An alternative scenario - when this story broke last week, I flicked through the entire yahoo reel that included it - there were two other shots of ancient crones bearing bullets / cases THAT HAD DEFINITELY BEEN FIRED. Perhaps the caption writer was fatigued and thought “oh, bloody Hell, another bint clutching bullets, what did I do for the last one? Right click, copy, sorted.”
If there were many people there, the true background will come out, I imagine. Thoguh I wonder if it will receive as much attention from rightwing bloggers if the explanation is innocuous?
That said, the photo still looks too ugly and amateurish. Why would al-Okaili have ever thought it worthy of subbmission?
Anyway
>
I thought the second photograph (the good one, with the bullet dead centre) was taken a month earlier? Maybe I imagined that part.
That’s possible, I can’t recall exactly. Could have been different date, same description, or something. Point is, you’re right it could be two different women. I don’t have enough facts to dispute that.
If there were many people there, and the shot was staged, they’d all have a vested interest in keeping this quiet.
That AFP immediately pulled the photograph suggests that the explanation is not innocuous. It’s also not the first time that this sort of thing has happened. Staged shots, deceptive angles or juxtapositions, deliberately positioned props, misdescribed images, or outright fakeries are being discovered fairly regularly. It spawned a new term: fauxtography. Some have been admitted, others led to people being fired. One even made it to the cover of the US News & World Report.
Who knows how many remain undiscovered? Don’t know about you, but I’d prefer my news media rather more honest, and I’m not going to give them the benefit of the doubt if I see something so obviously wrong.
As for why al-Okaili would submit it, check out his other photographs. Not all his pictures are worthy of the Louvre.
But if the explanation really is innocuous, why haven’t we heard an innocuous explanation? Surely, until then, errors require correction? And surely everyone — not just “rightwing bloggers” — has an interest in accurate reporting?
A staged shot is one thing - the older photograph obviously is set up, but that doesn’t mean the woman isn’t brandishing the core of a bullet the really did smash into her bed. Where as the more recent one is clearly preposterous, since the bullets have obviously never been fired. I think the conspiracy of silence is questionable, since someone would have been tempted to speak out - though there is still plenty of time
That said, I agree media frauds need to be exposed, whether it be daubing smoke clouds onto Beruit (as if that really needed to be exaggerated) or Sky faking the launching of cruise missiles from submarines. There’s enough propoganda being spouted by governments, factions and everyone else without the media joining in.
I’m still not convinced by the bullets - everytime I look at the photo it just screams WRONG. Not having fondled many bullets in my time, I wouldn’pretend to be an expert, but the way she’s holding them just looks wrong. Still,as you said, that scenario raises more questions than it answers.
Thank you for bring a possible fraudulent photo to our attention. At Texans for Peace we like to be accurate even though we rely on wire services for some of our photos and information.
CJ