11 Comments

These deaths would not have been reported if they had not been photographed. Two women killed by the Taliban for some claimed moral infraction? ‘Dog bites Man’. Two deaths photographed is news.

It should not be like this. Everyday suffering is the thing that should be reported and firing us to action.

Journalists are going to have to come to grips with the fact that it does matter whose side they are on. Winning Pulitzers by doing work in the tadition of Duranty is not acceptable to any one any where…outside of Tehran or Damascus.

I absolutely want these things recorded and distributed. Everyday on these blogs I argue with some leftist woman that says it wasn’t so bad before we invaded and women like Sharia and on and on. They especially want to say the Muslim fundamentalist is no worse than the Christan fundamentalist here. They want to tell me what good people Muslim men are and how I cannot condemn a whole religion.

We need the pictures and the documentaries and every kind of media. What we do NOT need is fake pictures from movies passed off as the real thing or dramatizations of stoning.

Journalists must come to grips sooner or later with the fact that it matters whose side they are on. They can not pretend even-handedness and then follow the Taliban about, nor pay those that do. There is no indication at all that the Taliban kidnapped this photographer and forced him to take this video. Nor that the murdered women were prostitutes. We only have the murderers word for that, dutifully reported by the AP. If things like this remind people of Walter Duranty no one should be much surprised. Of course journalists are still desperately avoiding his legacy as well, aren’t they?

[...] PROFESSOR BAINBRIDGE: Science Fiction Journalism Becomes Real Journalism. Related thoughts here and here. [...]

The more think about it the stranger it is.

The AP Photographer Just Stood There While the Taliban Murdered Two Afghan Women. Then Phyllis Chesler puts the photograph on her blog and attacks The AP Photographer who Just Stood There While the Taliban Murdered Two Afghan Women.

Jawa report notes that Fox has looked into this. Does the photographer’s explanation wash? If the Taliban assures the photographer he will be safe and misleads him as to exactly who will be executed does that excuse him for the deaths he films? I also believe he claims to have checked with his AP office before he went on this trip. Is that accepted procedure?
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,386161,00.html

If someone was going to shoot me for whatever reason, I’d feel blessed to have a photographer recording my death and double blessed to have it published.

For me to be a photographer during a war and to be called upon to record such henious acts, and to do so, would take an act of courage.

It´s so sad…
but at least
they are real in the photography –
This way they still exist.
When I saw the photo, my heart was touched.
Perhaps, this was the objective of the
reporter.

In an entirely different war zone, in Georgia, photographers could have helped saving an Israeli reporter’s life, gravely injured, but instead they chose to take photograph the victim , leaving the hard rescue evacuation and saving reporter’s life to a gutsy Dutch Tv reporter (who lost his cameraman in same attack);
The answer is clear; when one can save life this is what he should do, there is no “but” here; when saving life is impossible, as in the Afghan image, if there was nothing that photographer could have done besides taking pictures , don’t blame the messenger .

There is a world of difference between lynching and executions ; executions, mostly never ever happened by chance . It is once conscious that should dictate once actions;
re Israeli security on scene preventing photographing Israeli victims of bombing attacks, us photographers in Israel do not know the answer wether it is a policy to prevent the other side rejoicing or it is a security issue on scene; on many occasions in the past bloody years of bombings those images indeed were taken despite serious harassments towards photographers but American publications have chosen not to publish most of those bloody scenes after readers complained. Then of course there are many of those who complain against the photographers for not photographing Israeli victims.

It is very interesting to have an open web debate where one can place his comments but the issue is entirely of decision makers like newspapers editors; the ultimate verdict is theirs ; you would never know an image like this exist if it was not printed.

What exactly do we want the photographer to do? Yes, the photographer is a human being and has feelings and morals and ethics. However, when it comes to survival against odds, one must pick and choose the most viable. Let’s say you were with this mob. Do you think your words of condemnation would benefit the intended victims in any way? More than likely your words of condemnation would have the potential to make you the 3rd victim! Let’s be realistic. While we’d like to think that the photographer should do his duty as a human being and take on all those Taliban thugs single-handedly, Chuck Norris style, however that is a pipe dream. The photographer must work within the confines of the situation and what he can possibly do. In this situation, the Taliban are in control and they are deadly. The photographer knows this. His job becomes simple: do not offer an opinion, stay alive and simply capture the event. In essence, he has done something better than just being a bystander and being part of the problem. He has recorded the event for posterity and hopefully this will eventually lead to the end of brutal thug regimes like the Taliban.