ext_8821 ([identity profile] lederhosen.livejournal.com) wrote in [personal profile] tcpip 2005-09-06 04:43 am (UTC)

That's not quite what happened.

As per the Snopes article, the photographer who captioned the AP's 'looter' photo witnessed the (black) man in that photo go into a grocery store and take the items.

The photographer who took and captioned the other photo saw the (white and/or Latino) people it depicts picking up goods that were already floating away. Further, he was from AFP (Agence France Presse), which is not the same organisation as AP (Associated Press). Two different organisations, two different contexts, two different captions.

AFAICT, the controversy erupted when Yahoo News picked up and ran both pictures without stopping to cross-check the captions - understandable, given how busy news services have been lately. Readers missed the fact that AP and AFP are not the same organisation, and that the captions had been based on information beyond what appeared in the photos themselves.

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