The difficulty with David Frum’s apology for spreading bogus Gaza photo-fakery allegations

Justin Logan ?@JustinTLogan 36m
The difficulty with David Frum’s apology for bogus photo-fakery allegations http://wapo.st/1lY0M9g via @washingtonpost




David Frum, a senior editor at The Atlantic, today apologized for having questioned the authenticity of some photos of traumatized, blood-soaked men that were taken last week at a Gaza hospital. The pictures depicted two brothers who had accompanied their father to the hospital after an airstrike hit their home in Khan Younis.

AP, Reuters and the New York Times all captured images of the scene at the hospital. Frum apologized: “These images do appear authentic, and I should not have cast doubt on them. I apologize especially to Sergey Ponomarev of The New York Times, whose work I impugned.”

Here are three of Frum’s tweets:

A friend asks: why does Hamas use faked atrocity photos http://t.co/8h7WfLYYFo when it cd photo real casualties?

— David Frum (@davidfrum) July 24, 2014

Faked photo leads NYT story today http://t.co/x08PRt4epG — David Frum (@davidfrum) July 24, 2014

In the NYT version of the faked photo, the man does not yet have blood on his arms. Reuters was given its version later, I suppose

— David Frum (@davidfrum) July 24, 2014

. . . The words of regret from Frum came in a timely manner, and they seemed sincere. With a caveat: Tacked onto that apology was a brief history of “faked or misattributed photographs as tools of propaganda,” as he puts it. He continues: “Image management is a feature of all modern war, but in the Middle East it often seems that combatants put more effort into shaping perceptions than winning any strategic result on the ground. Most recently, images from the war in Syria have repeatedly been tweeted and retweeted as Israeli-inflicted casualties in Gaza.”

To which the proper question is, So what?

. . . It’s precious that in a post about his credulity, Frum would credit himself with skepticism. That’s precisely what he didn’t exercise here. He trafficked allegations of high journalistic corruption, apparently without ever consulting the people he was accusing. Eileen Murphy, a spokeswoman for the New York Times, said, “Oh God no,” when asked whether Frum had ever pre-checked his tweeting. “Based on what I understand, he did not,” she says . . .

read more: http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/erik-wemple/wp/2014/07/30/the-difficulty-with-david-frums-apology-for-bogus-photo-fakery-allegations/


related:

David Frum Accuses NYT and Reuters of Staging Gaza Hospital Photos (GRAPHIC) - http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2014/07/david-frum-accuses-nyt-and-reuters-of-staging-gaza-hospital-photos/

Defending Israel with the objectivity and intensity of the Bush speech writer he once was, David Frum, the Senior Editor at the Atlantic, alleged to his 100k Twitter followers on Thursday (not once, but eight times) that the NYT, Reuters (and AP, apparently in collusion, too) had staged a photo in a Gaza hospital.

. . . I’ll spare you Wictor’s theory about how the brothers must have complimented their grief with the tactic of covering themselves in fake blood. Given that Frum’s eight tweets had the potential reach of 800,000 pairs of eyeballs, not to mention the retweets, follow up links and fomentation it spawned, what is worth the effort is taking these allegations — similar to others being made more out of passion than logic during this horrible last month in the Middle East — and exposing them for how misguided they are. Certainly, these organizations have better uses of their time right now — including, keeping their photographers alive while adhering to ethical standards — without having to contend with libelous charges being leveled on impulse.

So, where should I start on Wictor’s conspiratorial analysis and his conclusion that these brothers must have posed first for the “clean handed” portraits, then applied fake blood to their hands for the photos in the corridor?

Should I start with Wictor’s inability to find, let alone sequence and read the relevant news photos in a logical timeline, instead basing his assumption of foul play (perpetrated spontaneously, by four different photographers and three different news organizations) in a scene he sees coming first that logically happens last? For you to appreciate what I’m talking about, let me offer you four published photos in the most likely chronology, photos #3 through #6 likely taking place before the New York Times and Reuters photos (#1 and 2) leading off this post . . .

read article/view sequence of photos (GRAPHIC) : http://www.bagnewsnotes.com/2014/07/david-frum-accuses-nyt-and-reuters-of-staging-gaza-hospital-photos/