October 2004 - Reading The Pictures

Photo October 30, 2004

More Explosives

Here’s the ABC television segment showing members of the 101 Airborne inspeciting explosives at Al Qaqaa before they went missing. View Quicktime clip here. (source: onegoodmove.org)

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Snoop Dogg comes late to the ‘”get out the vote” party — but not too late. Here’s his video-game based PSA. (Check out that last scene….) View here. Other versions here. (source: slashdot.org) (video: archive.org)

Photo October 29, 2004

Bush’s Doctored Ad: A Case of Racial Pandering?

Apparently, President Bush’s latest ads have been photoshopped (it used to be called “doctored”) with multiple copies of the same troops. Of course, if a newspaper did the same thing, somebody would be publicly reprimanded for violating professional, ethical and moral standards. The question is, should political ads be...

Photo October 28, 2004

Bush To Explode?

What you might well be looking at are the explosives that took down the Bush presidency. Wouldn’t that be poetic justice? The WMD actually found Bush. Apparently, a camera crew from the ABC station in Minneapolis, embedded with an Army unit, actually documented U.S. soldiers going through the munitions...

Campaign '04 Photo

Watch Your Back

Given my weeks of hammering about the New York Times political photo coverage, my occasional guest blogger, Karen, alerted me to this shot from today’s NYTimes on-line. It’s the first shot I’ve seen in the Times (at least since the debates) that captures the thin-skinned Bush we saw on...

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Baghdad, Ohio (11/2/04 minus 5)

If bad news in Iraq spells bad news for Bush, then Wednesday wasn’t a very good day. Looking at the crucial battleground of Ohio, here is a sample of the state’s larger newspapers, along with the type and number of war-related articles on the front page. (Dayton Daily News)...

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Eminem Vs. GDub

Here’s Eminem’s take on the election. View here. (source: guerillanewsnetwork)

Campaign '04 Photo

Unequal TIME (Or: Dairy State Low Light)

Here’s my latest example of photojournalistic character assassination. This composition was the lead feature in Time Magazine’s Wednesday on-line campaign photo gallery. Notice how Bush is always on top in these juxtapositions? (If you’re familiar with my system, I score it: Bush 5, Kerry -7.)

Photo October 27, 2004

Planning Like Mad

The only thing worse than not finding the WMD we thought we knew about …is losing the only WMD that we actually did know about. send this cartoon to a friend!

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Reading the Subliminals

In an election season in which the White House has tried to feminize John Kerry, what is a danger of the press playing — at least, unconsciously –into the stereotype? In looking at all the shots of Kerry and Clinton at Monday’s huge rally in Philadelphia, I didn’t see...

BAGannouncements Photo

Now You Sea It, Now You Don’t

(According to the drug company, it’s mission is “clear.” Ultimately, it is to “obliterate” disease completely. However, if you separate the image from the words, the meaning becomes more ambiguous. How much, for example, does this image really lend itself to altruism? Couldn’t it, as easily, be inviting you...

Photo October 26, 2004

11/2/04 minus 7

Not if or whether, but how and when? (Nothing is more consistent than personality.) Here’s Joshua Green’s piece in The Atlantic.

Photo October 25, 2004

Cheap Shot of the Day

Yahoo/AP offers this shot of Bill Clinton “greeting audience members” at a rally for John Kerry at Love Park, Philadelphia–of all places. The rally, by the way, drew over 100,000 people. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)

Uncategorized Photo

More F*** New York

Right after the Republican Convention, I profiled a video clip from a group called F*** New York. Although their first offering was more sophisticated, this is a commendable job for good, straight ahead sarcasm. View here. (source: hiphopmusic.com)

Uncategorized Photo

A Show of Hands

You’ve got to be pretty dim to have your hands all over a colleague in direct view of the fixed angle C-SPAN camera in the U.S. House of Representatives. According to dKos, two freshman Republican members proved to be that unconscious. Not surprisingly, the woman on the right is...

Photo October 24, 2004

Rove’s Homosexual Panic (Or: All Liz All The Time)

In his column this week (“The O’Reilly Factor for Lesbians”), Frank Rich discusses the Republican overreaction to John Kerry’s “Cheney’s gay daughter” remark. The main trajectory of the story involves the phony outrage by the conservatives for “outing” somebody who was already openly gay. Actually, the aspect of the...

Photo October 21, 2004

A Real Cell Job

In the latest Newsweek, the cover story is devoted to the stem cell debate. The thesis of the article is that this topic actually has the power to tip the election. Any marketing person knows that there are generally two great motivators: fear and sex. Of course, in the...

Campaign '04 Photo

Bush Unplugged

The main question underlying my ongoing critique of the NYTimes’ political photo coverage is, Why does Kerry keep coming off worse than Bush? One angle to consider (pardon the pun) is that practical factors play a significant part. For example, one of my visitors last week suggested that the...