Big Mistake

first - Tyler Hicks is a man I have deep respect for.

second - this game, foreign staff, wire service and freelance photojournalism, is about as demanding as you could imagine (Bill would of course know this). most combatant organizations are well aware of how powerful the medium is and they act accordingly. too often this involves violence. most photojournalists are about as far out on a limb as one can get in these circumstances and personal safety often involves decisions most would not consider. the only thing the NYTimes should be doing right now is carefully explaining this. it is the desk that decides what runs and in this case, Tyler should have been left out of it. if the chaps that run the desk, and the bean counters think they can do a better job then pack the bags and get on a plane.

Hamas, the FSB, Al Nusra, Syrian Security Services etc. are dangerous folks. if they indicate photographing particular events would be hazardous to your health, you need to take that advice seriously.

shameful is my 2 cents. i also believe the author was getting a bit ahead of themselves with some of the accusations.
 
famous quote

famous quote

It goes something like this: "At the outbreak of hostilities, truth is always the first casualty."
 
As a major chicken myself, I can only support the reporters that work in such conditions.
The troubles is that the journal needs to make clear to its readers when the reporters are significantly unable to show the whole picture, when they are intimidated, etc.
Otherwise, it is playing in the hand of the bullies.
Also, I wonder why this issue appears only now in Gaza, and not in Syria, Irak, Libya, Afganistan etc. If I'm not mistaken, these are not much less dangerous places, are they?
Maybe that's what sound wrong to the people behind the desks?
 
The "truth" in reporting seems to be controlled by the entities in power.
I recall the times in Baghdad as a young man, when we would meet as close friends in some home, listening to short wave radio as our only source of acceptable information. We never believed the Iraqi news agencies, of course.

We would actually know about some incident, such as Iranian airplanes attempting to bomb and destroy some oil refinery close to Baghdad. We will know from friends and relatives whether the bombing caused damage or not. Then, we start listening to several radio stations, such as Voice of America, Radio Monte Carlo, BBC, Deutsche Welle... Etc. They hardly ever reported the same "truth". Each had an agenda, and each would report different "details" on the bombing of that oil refinery. Mostly, it was not the truth..

You would then use your understanding or your level of confidence in the truth being reported by a given news agency.

Nothing is new here.
 
raid said:
Threads open and close. It is no big deal since this is about photography. The laws of power and control still apply.
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I'm with you on this Raid ... the establishment controls both the output and the resources devoted to the press

... however I expect that was a statement of intent rather than a prediction
 
emraphoto said:
first - Tyler Hicks is a man I have deep respect for.

second - this game, foreign staff, wire service and freelance photojournalism, is about as demanding as you could imagine (Bill would of course know this). most combatant organizations are well aware of how powerful the medium is and they act accordingly. too often this involves violence. most photojournalists are about as far out on a limb as one can get in these circumstances and personal safety often involves decisions most would not consider. the only thing the NYTimes should be doing right now is carefully explaining this. it is the desk that decides what runs and in this case, Tyler should have been left out of it. if the chaps that run the desk, and the bean counters think they can do a better job then pack the bags and get on a plane.

Hamas, the FSB, Al Nusra, Syrian Security Services etc. are dangerous folks. if they indicate photographing particular events would be hazardous to your health, you need to take that advice seriously.

shameful is my 2 cents. i also believe the author was getting a bit ahead of themselves with some of the accusations.
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Been a while since I posted, but this is spot on. Having studied and practiced journalism, I never bought into the too-easily-distilled 'American media outlets are controlled by politicians / push an agenda' explanation (with the exception of certain cable news outlets…). It's a much more complex issue of access, what sells, what the reporter chooses to cover and whether the outlet will sponsor that, and 'heads will roll if we run this' editorial decisions.

I get asked about that a lot when I tell people I switched from journalism to architecture: "the media really pushes an agenda on the reporters" or something like that. In my experience, I would say that more often we were taught to look for controversy, and articles would get cut/promoted for the sake of viewership. Images of children in peril is a much more heartstring-tugging picture than pictures of the supposed bad guys. Is it balanced journalism? No, but I wouldn't jump to call it politically motivated censorship.

I think the Times is definitely throwing Hicks under the proverbial bus here, but this article is taking a step further in editorializing by saying the times explained it away as him being bad at his job. I think one of the toughest thing about being a journalist is the number of sites dedicated to critiquing the news, which makes it exceptionally hard to even attempt fair reporting.
 
I do not imagine .......

Still, it is about a journalist and about his employer or user of his war images.
 
this is why the 'article' is a bit off for me. Nowhere in the linked JTA piece is Tyler's name mentioned. Tablet chose to insert his name for some unknown reason.
 
Bill Pierce said:
Having done some of this photography, I have a great deal of affection, admiration and respect for other photographers that do it. Nor would I single out these folks safely behind desks at the New York Times as the only folks who make the same mistake.

http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/181...-prize-winning-photographer-in-gaza#undefined
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Bill, I don't really understand what you're saying in your original post, nor do I know what sort of journalism Tablet Magazine practices; but it looks tendencious, distorted and untrue if you read this article on the same subject in The Atlantic, which, unlike Tablet Magazine, provides the context and the full quote from the New York Times statement to the JTA.

MITCH ALLAND/Potomac, MD
Do You Know What is Really Real?
Download link for PDF file of 15-shot portfolio
 
The take away from this for me is the following.
The action of the NY times goes a long way to show how ignorant they believe their readership is on this conflict.
The sad reality is with little exception their readers as well as the majority of the public are indeed terribly ignorant .
As a member of Joe Public...Unless one is getting news from family or colleges on the ground (Or in Johns case first hand knowledge), the story we all know is the one that our news agencies can concoct for us.
It may have some accuracy but it's still a product made to satisfy a demand for news about the situation and create views to support advert sales.
It's a shame that photogs and journalist are there risking their lives to accurately deliver content only to have it edited down into a package that suits the publication selling it to consumers.

Synical... maybe.
 
malland said:
Bill, I don't really understand what you're saying in your original post, nor do I know what sort of journalism Tablet Magazine practices; but it looks tendencious, distorted and untrue if you read

Mitch, I'll admit mine is a pure gut reaction. If you are going to risk being killed or, in some ways even worse, being maimed, and, at the same time, work at the best of your ability, I would expect your employers to be extremely supportive even though what you are going through is far beyond their experience, even their imagination. Too often that is not the case. And lack of support, ill thought assignments and ignorance of the on the ground realities can result in terrible consequences for the journalist. Some office folk are amazingly good, a real life line to sanity. There are a few that aren't that way, ones that you would just like to tell, "Why don't you come over here and show me what you want done."
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The NY Times paid photographers $200 a day back in the early 1990's -- today they pay the same. They also have a mandatory contract for photographers that is awful. So now, to add insult to injury they blame the photographer for not being able to shoot specific shots in an active war zone. Even if the photographer got those shots, and who's to know if he did, he's not the photo editor selecting what gets published. Nor is he the one responsible for the web site or any of the content. I vote fire NYT VP Eileen Murphy - if for no other reasons than every person named Eileen I have not liked -- I realize this isn't scientific, but it does make one wonder about the cosmos. Speaking of wonder, I still can't wrap my head around the concept of a newspaper treating a photography badly -- does that really happen?
 
Ranchu said:
What are you saying the NYT did?
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They simplified the answer to the question by pointing the finger at one man and saying he was doing a lousy job.
It's much much more complicated and by not getting into it they do a disservice and dumb down their audience even further.
If the desk had explained... "hey that's the only side of the story we could can safely provide images of at this time... more later" etc... .
But they did not do that rather, they said "why? we'll... it's that guy over there".
 
There is only the link to the Tablet article claiming a certain comment has been made by a NY Times editor.
Searching in the NYT for any comments from her, there is nothing related coming up.
So flaming the NYT based on this information is a little premature IMHO.

As was already mentioned before, the truth always dies first, I assume just by all the related pop ups
that offer certain information, that the Tablet also has a specific point of view on this conflict.

I for sure have not enough information to make any judgement here.
And I have also no clue how a photographer's contract with NYT looks like.

The only thing safe to say is that the "civilian damage" on both sides is very unbalanced.
Certain decisions are obviously made accepting the fact of a high colateral damage.
That is true for both sides !

If photographers are located in Gaza, there are much more "opportunities" to document wounded civilians
as there are to document militants putting up a rocket launcher in hiding and be gone all within 2 minutes.

When 3 UN schools are getting hit by rockets, you have enough time to get there
- and risk your life taking pictures that most likely will never leave your memory, ever again.
 
Bill Pierce said:
Mitch, I'll admit mine is a pure gut reaction. If you are going to risk being killed or, in some ways even worse, being maimed, and, at the same time, work at the best of your ability, I would expect your employers to be extremely supportive even though what you are going through is far beyond their experience, even their imagination...
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Bill, the trouble is that you need more than a "gut reaction" in a matter of this nature — otherwise you end up quoting the Tablet Magazine article, which, as has become clear from some of the links provided above, has injected the idea that the NYT did not support, or trashed, Tyler Hicks; but is not the truth, as evidenced by direct quotes of the NYT's statement to JTA (as others have pointed out above). This has turned into an unfortunate thread from several points of view.

MITCH ALLAND/Potomac, MD
Do You Know What is Really Real?
Download link for PDF file of 15-shot portfolio
 
Who said "In conflict, what cannot be seen is the story"? This seems to apply here. I agree about the jeopardy of the Photojournalists who would attract my support. Who knows what pressures they face in the assignment, and from their subjects, all of which conspire to edit their work, much of it intelligent and heroic. We can only speculate about the background to the New York times' comments and marvel at their insensitivity.
In a recent BBC production, The Honourable Woman, Ms Stein tells this story:

Aliens come to earth and raze Moscow, London and New York to the ground. On landing at the border in Gaza they meet with Hamas and the Isrealis and declare "Lay down your arms". Endless discussions ensue , it's a long story and several days later your sympathies lie with the Aliens".

I sometimes think that the flood of instantaneous news prevents the story gaining clarity.
 
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