MSNBC Photo Blog Covers AFP Photo Fiasco
MSNBC’s Photo Blog covers the controversy surrounding the veracity of Hazem Bader’s Jan. 25 AFP photo caption which claims that an Israeli soldier drove a trailer over a Palestinian worker.
Robert Hood blogs, in part:
However, Tamar Sternthal argues the other side in his Feb. 6 opinion piece in ynetnews.com. Sternthal says AFP claims to have viewed video footage of the construction worker being carried away after the incident, but does not claim to have seen footage of him actually being run over.
AFP unwittingly drew attention to a key point: of the several photographers on site who were snapping away, not one has released a single image of Abu Qbeita as he was being run over.
Sternthal also attacks the medical certificate that AFP offered and challenges the existence of the construction worker’s x-rays when he writes, “He (Mahmud Abu Qbeita) does not offer to show the x-rays, nor has AFP released them.
The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) also criticizes AFP’s response, saying there are discrepancies between Bader’s original caption and what AFP says in their Feb. 3 press release.
While we appreciate Robert Hood’s straightforward account, we are dismayed to see that MSNBC, unlike the Wall Street Journal, did not bother to clarify the original problematic caption in the The Week in Pictures.
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