Friday, September 11, 2009

Just coincidence?

I suppose there was no way the main stream media could have ignored the story of the murder of pro-life activist, Jim Pouillon, given how much coverage they gave to the murder of an abortionist not long ago. But am I alone in wondering why this particular photograph of Mr. Pouillon was the one chosen to appear on the CNN website?

I am trying to avoid cynicism, honestly I am.


3 comments:

Doug Hickman said...

Gil, this is too cryptic for me. It seems that you’re not just wondering but actually speculating about why the photo was chosen, and I seem unable to make the leap. (I’m not “getting” it.)

I can offer a perspective, however. Several years ago, I worked for one of the world’s largest corporations on an internal Web portal that featured a “News and Events” page full of top stories. We started work at 6:30 a.m., and by eight o’clock we had to go live with that “page” and all its links. If we were one minute late, the phone rang and the boss was down our necks. One of our duties was to find photos. For that, we went mainly to Reuters. Our selection was sometimes sparse if the photo was to accompany a current event, and then we had to get it approved. Then we had to crop it, adjust brightness, etc.

I think the photo of Jim Pouillon is cropped just about right. It is not just a passport photo; it contains information about the man, and information is good in a news stock photo. We see that he is seated on the street, probably at a rally of some sort, and that his arm is extended toward some kind of cloth (signage?) with an Obama sticker on it. The photo shows him in a political moment, and it offers us a clue about his affiliations. That’s all to the good.

If I had prepped this photo for publication, I would have had some explaining to do if I had cropped out the Obama sticker.

Mike O'Malley said...

There is no reason to doubt you Mr. Hickman that you would have cropped the photo to include the Obama campaign sticker. ;-)

Indeed it conveys "information about the man" and offers a clue about his support for Pres. Obama.

http://catholicfire.blogspot.com/2009/09/prayer-vigil-for-slain-pro-life.html

Catholic Fire link above posts what seems to be the original photo

This is the photo:
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Ymg9VAvJo3E/SqwB53xvo6I/AAAAAAAAIaY/3TRsMdXC76I/s1600-h/Jim+Poullion.jpg

Here we find that Mr. Pouillon is not extending his hand toward some kind of cloth. Mr. Poullon holds an anti-abortion sign. In this cropping the photo conveys an idea of the graphic nature of the large protest photo of an aborted baby for with Mr. Pouillon was (in)famous. The viewer gets a better idea of what the confessed killer, Mr. Drake, found so murderously offensive about Mr. Pouillon.

This wider cropping also conveys "information about the man" and the placement of the Obama campaign sticker on a large graphic photo of a abortion victim offers a clue about whether Mr. Poillon blamed Pres. Obama for abortion..

Mike O'Malley said...

Hmmm? So Mr. Hickman, you worked for on an internal Web portal using Reuters' photos? Say, I've got a few of questions. What is a good HTML tag format for an embedded link on Gil's website? I dissatisfied with the quality of the linkage I've been using.

Are you acquainted with the Al Dura media fraud perpetrated a state-owned French television station called France 2 using a short video segment back on Sept. 30, 2000?

http://articles.latimes.com/2005/sep/09/opinion/oe-gelernter9?pg=1

http://www.seconddraft.org/index.php

http://www.jewishmediaresources.com/1159/the-al-dura-postscript

.

Are you acquainted with the escapades of Hizballah's Salam Daher otherwise known as "Green Helmet"?

Reuters was involved with this one. Here's a left-wing wedsite's link on this topic:

http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/22123_Green_Helmet_Admits_Staging_Photos

and another link

http://newsbusters.org/node/7002