News- no, it's propoganda

[Alex]

Here's a take on how Israel tries to work its image in the international press. Here's another on the Hezbollah PR effort.

Propoganda in photography is a serious issue because photographs simultaneously increase the emotional content of the information shown while simultaneously masking the fact that a photograph, almost by definition, lacks context. It is a still moment that only implies what happened just before, just after, and just ouside the frame.

People tend to forget that there is still an intermediary between themselves the events in a photograph, to a degree that is extremely difficult to achieve with the written word.

I would remind that not only is propoganda a part of every war but that all (good) photography is essentially propogandistic and distorting. This is not to say that all distortion is acceptable and if the timestamp information in the first link is correct then I would be very interested in hearing the response from Reuters and AFP about how they'll deal with it.