THURSDAY'S LETTERS: Readers on Mitchell's Defense of War Photogs, 'For Better' Not Best, Against Footnotes

By: E&P Staff In today's letters, readers react to Greg Mitchell's defense of war photographers, a vote against "For Better or Worse" as the best comic strip ever, and another reader hates footnotes in newspaper articles.

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On Mitchell's Defense of War Photogs


Thank you for your most recent "Pressing Issues" in defense of war photographers. I'm still trying to decide if I want to send this to someone from my synagogue who, in a weekly email to the congregants, asked all who were upset over news coverage of what was happening in the Middle East to get in touch with him since the problem appears to be that many of the local staff hired by the international press are not professional, objective reporters but are propagandists for Hezbollah and Hamas? He and I have stopped corresponding after several emails back and forth about how everything is staged, etc. etc.

Linda D. Epstein
McClatchy Washington Bureau Photo Editor
Washington, D.C.



My name is Michael Shaw, and I am a writer, psychologist, and publisher of the popular political blog, BAGnewsNotes.com. The main focus of the site is the analysis and interpretation of news images.

I have been trying to temper the hysteria regarding visual coverage of the Middle East conflict. I just wanted to thank you for your clear an sober piece on E & P.

Michael Shaw



Wow, what an interesting article. When will it be appearing on al-Jazeera's web site?

Rob Freve



I read you column with great interest and have a question I was hoping you could answer. Is that picture of your head accurate or was it doctored before it was posted?

Kenneth Tompkins
Charlotte, N.C.



Just one question -- why is every one fo these fraudulent photographs engineered to support Hezbollah, while there is not a single one cooked up to support Israel? Just wondering.

Jonathan Limebrook



I understand where you're coming from with respect to the dangers journalists face in the Middle East and in areas of conflict. My biggest beef is with the folks who choose which pictures are used and in what context. Not with the photographers. The photographers provide some raw data and others must use that information to weave a story to convey facts (let's stick to news and avoid editorial pieces for simpliticty's sake) to readers and viewers.

It's my opinion that authors of these news items play fast and loose with photos. They have insufficient background on the origins of the photo (due to circumstances or by choice), provide little or no context with the photo, and rarely any sense of scope or proportion. The "Green Helmet Guy" discussed at length on the EU Referendum site is an excellent example of that. Posted individually on any given news website one of those photos carries tremendous emotional impact. However, when you see the collection of photos, the meaning is suddenly very different. They're obviously "of intelligent design."

Once the photo is published, I'd argue, the damage is done. Readers and viewers see the photo. They don't read the fine print. Many skim the article. How many read the subsequent correction days later? In part 2 of your article I'd love to see website statistics showing hits on questionable photos compared to your (or another site's) corrections page. Heck, I can't even find a corrections page on the AP website.

It's my opinion that authors and editors need to exercise better judgement when selecting photos. Photos should supplement a narrative. They should not drive a narrative. They should back up facts, not manufacture them or misrepresent them. If a photo doesn't fit within the timeline of the story, it should not be included as part of the story! If the circumstances of the photo can't be verified, don't publish it. Isn't that the policy with print? Why should photos be different?

Mike Padula



Great column. Greg Mitchell cuts to the chase on the bogus "fauxtography" frenzy going on in the right wing screechosphere. The Hot Air crowd is seeing phantoms in every photo but offer no actual proof that their hysterical claims are accurate. Mitchell deflates their gas bag rather adroitly.

Libby Spencer



Your article just proved to me that nothing changed in 60 years. MSM still believe that they have to support fascists anywhere and at all times. You and your friends just follow the NY Times tradition of cover-up. During WW2 they covered up stories about concentration camps. As a son of an Auschwitz survivor who researched personally in East and west I discover that so-called newsmen from MSM always prefer propaganda to the true story.

As my teachers in Marxism class (in ex-Czekoslovakia) used to teach: Most of the "useful idiots" you can find are liberal American and European journalists.

Tomas Gold



It's worth mentioning somewhere that photo manipulation didn't start with Adobe Photoshop. I'll bet Ansel Adams manipulated some of his photos in the darkroom, dodging here and burning in there. I didn't have a chance to compare the Reuters smoke photos before and after they were Photoshopped, but if the crime was darkening the smoke, as I understand it was, that's a manipulation that could have been done with a negative, an enlarger and photographic paper. It's been going on for ages.

Bill Dunlap
Lake Oswego, Ore.

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'For Better' Not Best

I'll admit, I never thought I'd hear anyone claim that "For Better of For Worse" is the best comic strip of all time. While I admire some things about the strip, I think there are at least a half-dozen more interesting comics being syndicated today, never mind going back to "Little Nemo."

For starters, I don't think "For Better or For Worse" is all that funny. Charles Schulz once defined the job of a cartoonist as "drawing funny pictures." I don't find a lot of humor in Johnston's artwork and I notice that you didn't make an extended case for comedy as one of her strong suits.

I also find the writing in the strip to be suspect. A lot of Johnston's punch lines hinge on puns or observational humor. Unfortunately, I find her observations to be pretty generic. While I appreciate some of the strip's realistic depictions of family life, I think Johnston undermines these by ending so many strips with puns. The effect is more jarring than endearing.

Also, what you see as a virtue--? the fact that Johnston portrays realistic characters that age -- I see as one of the strip's fatal flaws. Comic strips thrive on abstraction, from Snoopy's hunt for the Red Baron to Calvin's adventures as Spaceman Spiff. There's nothing nearly as imaginative in Johnston's strip. In an effort to be realistic, she's robbed herself of everything that comics do best.

My biggest complaint about the strip, however, is that I think it's something of a bore. There's nothing in "For Better or for Worse" that isn't familiar to readers already. As a result, there's very little potential for surprise. Despite her obvious connection to the material, I've never felt that there was a strong personality behind Johnston's strip. ...

Dixon Galvez-Searle
Editor, Screen Magazine
Chicago, Ill.

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On the Use of Footnotes

Every editor I had in my early years in journalism loathed the use of footnotes in news or feature stories. Like them, I felt that the information that would go into a footnote could be reduced to the essential facts and worked unobtrusively into the text.

That assumption has not changed over the years, although I have come to understand that in anything resembling a learned journal they are expected in great length. There is something in the psyches of professors that insists that the longer the footnote, the more intellectual the essay will be.

Today's mixed media, with the increasing emphasis on "people's journalism," makes apparent proof of content virtually mandatory. That doesn't make it factually or intellectually unimpeachable, it simply gives the reader a few more clues to track down via Google or Ask.com.

Copy uncluttered by footnotes is a thing of the fast-approaching past. We had all better get used to it.

Wes Pedersen
Chevy Chase, Md.