Al-Independent uses staged photo to depict 'imprisoned Palestinian chilldren'
This is an amazing story.
A Palestinian photographer stages a picture that the Independent uses as a news photo. Find the June 27, 2012 article at http://tinyurl.com/7lps9qa. Send your complaints to The Independent's News Desk -- newseditor@independent.co.uk - and demand that a correction be published.
Let's go to the videotape.
Read more on anti-Israel photo bias: http://honestreporting.com/shattered-lens-photo-bias-exposed-in-the-wire-serv...
Italian photographer Ruben Salvadori was covering the weekly 'Palestinian' riots in Jerusalem's Silwan neighborhood. But he discovered that he wasn't interested in the stone throwers and he wasn't interested in the soldiers trying to control them. He was interested in the role that the photojournalists play in the riots. And here's what he produced.
Remember the tweet above, which was posted during the rocket bombardment from Gaza last week, and came from an employee in the United Nations' Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)? Well, the UN is 'investigating.'
After HR revealed that the false tweet had been posted by a UN employee, news spread to the highest levels of the Israeli government, culminating with an official demand from UN Ambassador Ron Prosor that the UN fire Badawi.
In a strongly worded letter, Prosor noted, “Ms. Badawi stands in complete violation of articles 100 and 101 of the UN Charter.” The articles refer to the principles of objectivity and non-partisanship expected of UN workers. The principles include the statement that employees “shall refrain from any action which might reflect on their position as international officials responsible only to the Organization.”
In response to Prosor’s letter, UN Under-Secretary General Valerie Amos wrote, “It is regrettable that an OCHA staff member has posted information on her personal Twitter profile, which is both false and which reflects on issues that are related to her work. The opinions expressed in her tweets in no way reflect the views of OCHA, nor has it been sanctioned by OCHA.”
That position was confirmed by OCHA spokeswoman Amanda Pitt, who told Fox News that Badawi would continue working at OCHA while the organization undertook an internal review to determine if any action would be taken.
Meanwhile, Badawi returned to her Twitter account for the first time in six days to post a “correction” of her earlier tweet but not an apology or remorse for spreading lies. She also failed to acknowledge that the photo was false, depicting a girl who had been hurt in an accident, not by Israel.
Further research revealed that the photo was taken in 2006 by Reuters, and that the girl, initially thought to have been killed in an Israeli air strike, was injured by falling off a swing. When confronted with this information, Alzeer stated that the photo was taken last night and forwarded to the press that day.
In fact, the photo was taken by Reuters on August 9, 2006. It was originally released with an incorrect caption, and then corrected a day later:
A Palestinian man carries the body of three year-old Raja Abu Shaban, in Gaza August 9, 2006. The three-year-old girl who had been reported killed by an Israeli air strike in Gaza on Wednesday actually died of an accident, Palestinian medical workers said on Thursday. Workers at Gaza’s Shifa hospital said on August 10, 2006 that the initial mistake over the cause of death appeared to have arisen because the girl’s corpse was brought in at the same time as the bodies of the gunmen. REUTERS/Mohammed Salem (PALESTINIAN TERRITORIES)
Alzeer later published an apology and withdrew her claims. Badawi has yet to respond.
Khulood Badawi happens to work for the OCHA – the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs where, according to a UN Contact List, she works as an Information and Media Coordinator.
A Google search reveals that Badawi has a history of activism in a range of pro-Palestinian non-governmental organizations, some of them radical and politicized. While this background may not in itself disqualify her from a career with the UN, it is absolutely unacceptable that a UN employee working specifically on dissemination of information to the media and public tweets malicious and false information to libel Israel.
I trust that Ban Ki-Moon will have her fired immediately and issue an apology... er... not likely. And don't expect Barack Obama to look to withhold any budget money from OCHA either.
The picture in this post is my screen capture from a video (which I learned from the article linked below was shot by al-Jazeera - who else?), but the still photograph of the event has been honored in an international photography competition for the “spot news” photo of the year.
The dramatic photo of a boy being thrown onto the hood of Be’eri’s car earned Ilia Yefimovich, a photographer for the Russian News Agency Itar-Tass, an award of excellence. The final winners of the Pictures of the Year International competition will be announced on February 23.
Yefimovich said he wasn’t surprised that his photo was cited, because “it so perfectly captured the moment” in an otherwise “lame” year of news in Israel.
The photo was greeted with suspicion around the world, with many accusing Yefimovich and the other photographers of “setting up” the situation, and even encouraging the youths to throw rocks so they would have something to photograph.
“I went to Silwan every week for the past eight months, every single Friday,” he told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
“So it’s not like, ‘Whoa, what were the journalists doing there?’ They send us to these places because things happen here.
“I pass there lots of times, and kids throw stones not because photographers are coming to shoot them, they do it because they want to do it.
You can see them not just on Friday, but on Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday, morning, noon, and night.”
Yefimovich added that rocks were thrown at his own car on the way to Silwan that day, without any photographers present.
I'd bet that if they had no expectation of photographers showing up, there would be a lot fewer stones thrown. Does anyone really believe that the kid below isn't being encouraged by all the photographers?
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
