Pages

Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Today's deceptive Reuters photo caption

Reuters shows us an outpouring of grief at the funeral of a PFLP militant:

Palestinians carry the body of militant Bassam Badwan during his funeral in Gaza City June 29, 2010. An Israeli air strike on the Gaza Strip on Monday killed at least one Palestinian militant, Badwan, and wounded two other people, medical workers said. An Israeli army spokeswoman said a military aircraft had "targeted a Palestinian who fired a rocket-propelled grenade at soldiers" that struck inside Israel.

Look at all those outstretched hands, all from people trying to pay their last respects and yearning to be able to touch the militant hero before he is buried!

But Getty Images shows a similar picture, with a showing a wider angle and with a decidedly different caption:
Press photographers crowd around Palestinian mourners carrying the body of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP) militant Bassam Badwun duirng his funeral in Gaza City on June 29, 2010 after being shot dead by Israeli forces.

Hmmm...there seem to be more photographers there than mourners, and some of those outstretched hands were from journalists!

Reuters was not lying in this case, but it is always interesting to see what photos look like when they aren't cropped in order to make the story just a little bit better.

UPDATE: AP was as bad as Reuters (h/t Media Backspin)


Badwan_AP 
Palestinian mourners carry the body of Bassam Badwan, a militant from the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), out of his family house during his funeral in Gaza City, Tuesday, June 29, 2010. Badwan was killed Monday in an Israeli airstrike in Gaza. (AP/Khalil Hamra)