Anatomy of a Photograph

The San Francisco Chronicle featured the original photograph on its front page in order to convey a positive message about the rally — perhaps that even politically aware teenagers were inspired to show up and rally for peace, sporting the message, “People of Color say ‘No to War!'” And that served the Chronicle’s agenda.
But this simple analysis reveals the very subtle but insidious type of bias that occurs in the media all the time. The Chronicle did not print an inaccuracy, nor did it doctor a photograph to misrepresent the facts. Instead, the Chronicle committed the sin of omission: it told you the truth, but it didn’t tell you the whole truth.
Because the whole truth — that the girl was part of a group of naive teenagers recruited by Communist activists to wear terrorist-style bandannas and carry Palestinian flags and obscene placards — is disturbing, and doesn’t conform to the narrative that the Chronicle is trying to promote. By presenting the photo out of context, and only showing the one image that suits its purpose, the Chronicle is intentionally manipulating the reader’s impression of the rally, and the rally’s intent.
Such tactics — in the no-man’s-land between ethical and unethical — are commonplace in the media, and have been for decades. It is only now, with the advent of citizen journalism, that we can at last begin to see the whole story and realize that the public has been manipulated like this all along.

Via Little Green Footballs, which regularly provides examples of misleading cropping.

Here’s another good one.

UPDATE: Hugh Hewitt reports on the Chronicle’s response to the criticism, and neatly summarizes:

Did the photo inform or mislead. It clearly misled. That’s the point. The only point.

"Some Americans want us to withdraw our troops so that we can escape the violence. I recognize their good intentions, but their position is wrong. Withdrawing our troops would make the world more dangerous, and make America less safe. To leave Iraq now would be to repeat the costly mistakes of the past that led to the attacks of September the 11th, 2001. The terrorists saw our response to the hostage crisis in Iran, the bombings in the Marine barracks in Lebanon, the first World Trade Center attack, the killing of American soldiers in Somalia, the destruction of two U.S. embassies in Africa, and the attack on the USS Cole. The terrorists concluded that we lacked the courage and character to defend ourselves, and so they attacked us. Now the terrorists are testing our will and resolve in Iraq. If we fail that test, the consequences for the safety and security of the American people would be enormous. Our withdrawal from Iraq would allow the terrorists to claim an historic victory over the United States. It would leave our enemies emboldened and allow men like Zarqawi and bin Laden to dominate the Middle East and launch more attacks on America and other free nations. The battle lines are drawn, and there is no middle ground: either we defeat the terrorists and help the Iraqis build a working democracy, or the terrorists will impose their dark ideology on the Iraqi people and make that country a source of terror and instability to come for decades." – President Bush (22 Sept 2005)

Via Security Watchtower.

The following is from a DOD press briefing on Tall Afar. The entire report is worth reading but this detailed description of the "terrorists" seems especially worthy of attention (via The Belmont Club):

I’d like just to briefly characterize the enemy, describe who we’re fighting here. This is an enemy, who when they came in, they removed all the imams from the mosques, and they replaced them with Islamic extremist laymen. They removed all the teachers from the schools and replaced them with people who had a fifth-grade education and who preached hatred and intolerance. They murdered people. In each of their cells that they have within the city has a direct action cell of about 100 or so fighters. They have a kidnapping and murder cell; they have a propaganda cell, a mortar cell, a sniper cell — a very high degree of organization here. And what the enemy did is to keep the population from performing other activities. To keep the population afraid, they kidnapped and murdered large numbers of the people here, and it was across the spectrum. A Sunni Turkmen imam was kidnapped and murdered. A very fine man, a city councilman, Councilman Suliman (sp), was pulled out of his car in front of his children and his wife and gunned down with about 30 gunshot wounds to his head. The enemy conducted indiscriminate mortar attacks against populated areas and wounded scores of children and killed many others. The enemy here did just the most horrible things you can imagine, in one case murdering a child, placing a booby trap within the child’s body and waiting for the parent to come recover the body of their child and exploding it to kill the parents. Beheadings and so forth.

Meanwhile the fifth column fourth estate continues to undermine the good guys: Poll: Fewer than half think U.S. will win in Iraq:

On Thursday, Bush tried again to portray Iraq as a front on the global war on terrorism that began with the attacks of September 11, 2001, saying a U.S. withdrawal would only embolden terrorists.

CNN tried again to portray the situation as hopeless and to pretend the Jihadis in Iraq have nothing whatsoever in common with the 9/11 hijackers.

The Multiculturalists’ Anti-Anti-Terror War
By Rabbi Aryeh Spero
Human Events | August 15, 2005

They pontificate for the human rights of others — especially the enemy — more than for our own because that highlights, in their mind, how much more noble they are than the rest of us — morally superior to you and me.

. . .

In the eye of the cultural marxist, only Westerners — White Christian Westerners — can be guilty of racism, not, however, Islamicists, even at the moment they are preaching and practicing undeniable, virulent racism. Somehow that racism is neither organic nor religious/cultural, but “caused by us, our fault.”

How else could George Galloway justify his claim that: "[the US and UK] are the biggest rogue states in the world today"?

Anti-terrorism bill seen as undermining civil liberties
Tania Branigan, political correspondent
Wednesday September 21, 2005
Guardian

Liberal Democrats yesterday warned that the government’s counter-terrorism proposals would inflame community tensions and alienate young Muslims, as they unanimously passed a motion urging the party to defend civil liberties and oppose any move to water down human rights legislation.

. . .

Summing up the motion, Brian Stone, an activist from Hackney, London, said it expressed the heart and conscience of the Liberal Democrats. “The bombs were non-discriminatory. That day any Muslims in London were just as much [at] risk as I was. We have a government that seeks to imply that for some reason Islam is a crime and those who practise it are perpetrators. That’s what this motion is about.”

No, what we have is a sactimonious fifth column that seeks to imply that for some reason questioning Muslims is a crime and those who inquire are racist bigots. That’s what this motion is about.

Anyone who becomes alienated or inflamed by our attempts to protect ourselves is likely someone we need to protect ourselves from.

A Letter to All Who Voted for George W. Bush from Michael Moore:

I really want to know — and I ask you this in all sincerity and with all due respect — how do you feel about the utter contempt Mr. Bush has shown for your safety? C’mon, give me just a moment of honesty. Don’t start ranting on about how this disaster in New Orleans was the fault of one of the poorest cities in America. Put aside your hatred of Democrats and liberals and anyone with the last name of Clinton. Just look me in the eye and tell me our President did the right thing after 9/11 by naming a horse show runner as the top man to protect us in case of an emergency or catastrophe.

I want you to put aside your self-affixed label of Republican/conservative/born-again/capitalist/ditto-head/right-winger and just talk to me as an American, on the common ground we both call America.

Are we safer now than before 9/11? When you learn that behind the horse show runner, the #2 and #3 men in charge of emergency preparedness have zero experience in emergency preparedness, do you think we are safer?

Well, I don’t think we have much common ground and you’re a poor excuse for an American, but I’ll try to answer. You want to know if those of us who voted for George Bush feel safer. Unlike you I don’t claim to speak for anyone but myself. My answer is: hell yes assclown. Certainly safer than Al Gore, John Kerry, or you would have made us. Even after 9/11 none of you would have lifted a finger against the Taliban. None of you would have taken out Saddam and his sons. None of you would have confronted the Jihadi threat. Of course we’re safer now that Al Qaeda’s Afghani training camps are closed, Saddam’s WMD shell games are over, and Jihadis are flocking to paradise by way of Iraq. Of course you would have trouble seeing the value in any of this. You never recognized the threat, or blamed us for creating it ourselves. Sorry if I sound confused – you’ve never been very clear on that point.

Unlike you I don’t hold civilization or the people who sustain it to blame for the sociopaths who want to tear it down. Unlike you I don’t sympathize with those sociopaths and undermine those who fight them. And unlike you I don’t blame Bush or FEMA for Katrina. I blame the dehumanizing welfare state and the mentality of dependency engendered by it. And that was wrought by the kind of soft-headed leftist idealism you espouse. You alone are to blame for your short-sighted and self-serving partisan vitriol, your hypocritical holier-than-thou criticisms of the righteous, and your two-faced attitude toward your country and countrymen.

And on this sacred day of remembrance, do you think we honor or shame those who died on 9/11/01? If we learned nothing and find ourselves today every bit as vulnerable and unprepared as we were on that bright sunny morning, then did the 3,000 die in vain?

So a letter demonstrating your ignorance of what has been achieved and utter contempt for those who paid for it is how you honor those who died? On 9/11 I learned that we were vulnerable and unprepared. Today I see that we are better off, thanks to the efforts and sacrifices of many brave and mostly unsung individuals, to which those of us who cherish civilization all owe a great debt. I also see that you are just as narcissistic and pompous as ever. Mr. Moore, in all sincerity and with all due respect please write your next open letter in Arabic so your most ardent fans won’t need to translate it.