Last month, I, for one, was unpleasantly surprised to learn that some news photos of President Obama addressing the nation to announce the death of Osama bin Laden were actually photos of President Obama re-reading a few sentences of his address to news photographers after the actual live address. Reenacted. Staged. It was news to me that, as Poynter’s Al Tompkins reported, “this sort of staging has been going on for decades.”
But now, per a Washington Post headline, “Photos of presidential speeches to be captured in real time.” Real time! Just as some of us thought they always had been. From the Post:
The White House and news photographers have agreed to a new plan for shooting presidential speeches.
Out: staged, after-the-fact photo ops. In: a single photojournalist, who will be permitted to snap the president’s picture [with a shutter silencer] as he addresses the nation.
The agreement, hammered out quietly last week between the White House’s press office and the White House Correspondents’ Association, ends the long-standing but little-known practice of presidents posing for news photos after making important announcements. The images were then passed off in newspapers and on Web sites as photos taken during the speech rather than the re-creations they actually were.
News photographers will “now be permitted to designate a single representative to act as a ‘pool’ for the entire press,” such that, as New York Times photographer Doug Mills told the Post, “we will have still photos taken during the actual address by a news photographer.” Something you may have thought we already had.
The National Press Photographers Association site has more details on how this all transpired.
Related reading: Clint’s 2010 piece on access issues faced by White House photographers.
Thanks for this post--on what is probably the most under-reported story of the past month. This comes as no surprise, of course, because news organizations that have been passing off staged photos as real-time documents are naturally hesitant to report on their own deception. How many such photos have appeared in otherwise reputable papers such as the New York Times? Were staged video images broadcast as well? And how were such images originally described to readers and viewers?
The press has been essentially lying about these photos for years, and very few people seem willing to comment on it.
#1 Posted by Anthony, CJR on Thu 2 Jun 2011 at 02:46 PM
And really, who needs a shot of a televised presidential address, staged or not? It was a silly "controversy" all around, ginned up by oh-so-sensitive photogs feeling like someone was stepping on their turf.
#2 Posted by James, CJR on Thu 2 Jun 2011 at 03:07 PM
Has investigative journalism died?
I wasn’t sure where to post this, it’s of critical importance though that intelligent people read this and understands it. The future for America is in jeopardy. Whether you’re motivated to become a highly paid journalist, make a name for yourself, or become a part of history, in order to live in a free democratic society, I urge you to read this, draw your own conclusions, and share it with the world.
My name is Aaron Fleszar, you don’t know me, but the story I want to share with you is 100% true. I couldn’t make this stuff up if I tried. Whether you believe me or not, I ask that you read this all the way through, because there’s plenty to research and form your own opinion.
In March of 2008 I cracked a code online that is written across thousands of websites. These websites are selling every money making opportunity you can think of, from mystery shopping, to paid surveys, to every aspect of affiliate marketing and affiliate marketing education. By making fun of a group of scam artists, I discovered that this group is enormous, highly sophisticated, and positioned to make billions by destroying the US economy. They are Al-Qaeda.
When I first cracked this code I reported it to the FBI. A number of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists make up this code. For example, Wanted Seif al-Adel is claiming to be Mark Joyner and Noordin M Top is claiming to be Armand Morin wanted for the financing of Al-Qaeda. The code is made up of aliases with some political overtones, look a likes of CEO’s, and media moguls. It’s sophisticated, it’s dynamic, and if there was anything remotely easy about breaking it, the feds would have done it long before me.
Without going into great detail and allowing you to follow up on the code itself, I’ll share with you what I got out of it. A great deal of the FBI’s most wanted terrorists make up this code. This means whoever these people are, they must not be “on the run” and acting alone, but rather have always been part of this organization. This organization, Al-Qaeda online, appears to have run the last presidential election on the most highly ranked site in Google search, Youtube. Now I never thought anything about Obama, but it appears that Osama Bin Laden, much like these “internet marketing experts” who are terrorists, may have only been a spokesperson. It also appears that Osama’s name is a code and that Osama represents Obama and Biden (Bi)n La(den). It sounds ridiculous, but these people have been putting this code together for decades.
9/11 itself was an intelligence failure of epic proportions. It appears that the events of 9/11 were a stepping stone to a much larger plan. That plan appears to be to overthrow the US government. I believe the attacks on 9/11 were symbolic to an attack on capitalism, our foundation. I believe that the FBI had a similar theory about Obama, given his background with radicals such as Bill Ayers, and radical preachers. I’m sure they also thought Osama Bin Laden could be a code, and that the most wanted terrorists having connections to US embassy bombings in Kenya and Indonesia was more than a freak coincidence for Obama to have a background with both areas as well. This code online connects the dots between everyone’s theories.
It appears that a coup has taken place. Since Obama got elected, it appears unelected officials in Washington are using him to flush out the remaining members of the “New World Order” plot. After being tortured for over 3 years now, denied speaking with anyone in government, denied an attorney, denied a lawsuit in federal court, not to mention a million other things, I’ve been able to deduce quite a bit. The feds have also slowly taken over the media over the last several years.
The feds are creating the stories, the headlines, they’ve recruited writers and moderators, and are doing everything they can to control the rate at which this information
#3 Posted by aaron fleszar, CJR on Tue 7 Jun 2011 at 05:01 PM