Further to my postings, Attack on photographers in Lebanon is disgraceful and Can we ever be fair with Middle East coverage?, I want to draw the many commenters' attention to an extension of that debate. It forms the centrepiece to a trio of interesting and sensible commentaries on the disturbing images being transmitted from the Middle East by the Daily Telegraph's news editor, Shane Richmond. In the first one, he discusses why certain pictures are chosen for publication rather than others. Any editor will recognise that the arguments he advances for making such a choice - most obviously, news impact - amount to a perfectly reasonable explanation of how they go about their work. He also touches on the difference between an explicit picture and a gratuitous one. Good stuff but, for most journalists, unexceptional.
It was not seen in that way, however, by Richard North, a right-wing ranter whose wild accusations are, unfortunately, gaining a sympathetic audience in the States. After accusing Richmond of being "self-regarding", he questioned whether the image Richmond had used as an illustration for his arguments was genuine because the man pictured carrying a dead child seemed to turn his emotions on and off.
In his second posting Richmond answers North and is gracious enough to acknowledge that it is impossible to be sure of a picture's genuineness unless one is able to witness the event itself. But he points to factors that suggest the photographer was indeed recording reality. In dealing with North's allegations, he gets into the problematical territory previously raised by North about images being staged either by, or on behalf of, news agency photographers. In other words, are photographers and the editors who choose to publish their work, guilty of purveying propaganda? Again, Richmond's response is measured and springs from his professional knowledge. He gets to the nub of the argument by pointing out that the central fact is the indisputable death of a child. Then he takes up, and disposes of, the laughable accusation that the Daily Telegraph has an anti-Israeli agenda.
And so to the third Richmond posting, which wades into North once again. This time, Richmond dissects one of North's specious arguments that claims there is "evidence" that a rescue worker pictured by the agency photographers may have changed his T-shirt. With commendable patience, Richmond shows once again that the claim is false but concludes that it won't make any difference. Conspiracy theorists cannot be convinced by facts. Just so.
