Your Turn: Two For One, And One For All

For my money, the visual story of the week involved the duel (or dueling) pro-democracy demonstrations in Beirut.

The first demonstration (consisting of more upwardly-mobile Anti-Syrian Christians, Druse and Sunni) had been ongoing, and was the subject of my post, Betty Boop Takes Lebanon (link). The pro-Syrian demonstration, sponsored by Hizbollah on Tuesday, consisted of primarily poor to middle class religious Shiites, and was larger than the other demonstration many times over.

What I wanted to do was focus on the NYT’s photographic coverage of Tuesday’s events. Given the points and observations many of you posted in response to “Betty,” I wanted to offer a few new questions to consider.

First though, let me give some background.

The Hizbollah-sponsored demonstration was the subject of both the lead story and lead photo on Tuesday’s front page (Pro-Syria Party in Beirut Holds a Huge Protest – link). Although the version in the paper (also in color) was slightly cropped in width, this is the original AP shot.

Capt.Xhm11003081531.Mideast Lebanon Syria Xhm110

(Caption: “Demonstrators carried a portrait of President Bashar al-Assad of Syria and an anti-American placard in Beirut, Lebanon, yesterday during a pro-Syrian rally organized by the militant Shiite group Hezbollah.”)

The story was continued on page A8, alongside a news analysis of the event (Lebanese Find a New Identity in Peaceful Protests — link). As part of the continuation, two more images were included, both in black-and-white.

Beirut2

(Caption: “Lebanese women cheered while carrying a portrait of Syria’s president yesterday at a Hezbollah rally in Beirut. Far more women with head coverings attended than have been present at anti-Syrian rallies earlier.”)

Beirut1

(Caption: “A Lebanese Shiite Muslim journalist watched from a balcony as hundreds of thousands of pro-Syrian demonstrators gathered in Beirut.”)

So, here are my questions:

Do you think there is any significance to the fact that the front page crowd image is primarily male (I found two females in this version, but only one in the print edition) while the images on the continuation page both feature women? (And, if you feel this division is just a natural reflection of split gender roles, do you think the Times was somehow trying to “make it up” by “giving the women” two pictures on the inside page — albeit black and white– to compensate for the larger color shot “the men got” on the front page?)

Considering that the media generally covered this event with large crowd shots, with some photos of women clustered together within the crowd, do you think this more abstract “Cheering Women” photo was basically motivated by creativity, or does the layout have more to say than that? (Of course, I’d also be happy to hear your interpretation of this composition — as well as any visual analysis of the journalist on the balcony.)

Finally, do you think it’s unusual at all that the “Cheering Women” caption would specifically draw a comparison between the women at this demonstration and those at the more secular one? And, how significant is it, anyway, that more women with head coverings attended the pro-Syrian demonstration than the anti-Syrian one? Wouldn’t that be obvious?

(image 1: Hussein Malla/AP; image 2: Lynsey Addario for the New York Times; image 3: Norbert Schiller for the New York Times; image 4: Targets/Leo Burnett )

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Pedro

As with the photos of Ms. Boop, the women in these images are also just props to get a message out. If you take another look at the Ms. Boop picture, you’ll notice she’s the _only_ woman in it. Considering that she was probably edited-in, this puts both images on par concerning gender bias.
The other two images feature women prominently, but the message is clearly: “Hey, look! They’re wearing headscarves!”
One final detail I couldn’t help not noticing ist the absence of any _unfurled_ Lebanese flag. The shots are all about Syria and Al-Assad.
Qentin

Thanks Pedro, you got me dreaming again. Maybe the boob picture was taken at an especially windy moment, which might explain the dramatically unfurled flags (I wouldn’t bet on it though), or the ‘educated middle-class’ men in that photo have greater manpower to keep them billowing, as they lift each other on to their shoulders, men and, don’t forget, women, or they are more charged with the rhetoric of democracy’s march, or, from another viewpoint, the Lebanese Hezbollah supporters just don’t have the pizzazz U.S. magazine buyers expect for their money.
The bulletin board of the NY upper East Side known as the Times (borrowed description) becomes more and more of a rag everyday: think Judith Miller. The caption of the color front page photo tells the obvious; any reader can see there is a big picture of Bashar and an ‘anti-American’ placard. But what is just as obvious is the blue six-pointed star referring to Israel, which could be the main point for the choice of this particular photo. There must be tens of thousands which look just like it. And why is the poster anti-American: maybe it is to an extent historical fact. Í’m not saying it is, I’m just wondering why the NY Times needs to paint these people so deliberately into the bad boy’s corner, as if they’re necessarily our enemies, reving up to mow us down.
The front page photo is a ‘mob scene’. It denies individuality to the demonstraters. Instead individuality is reserved for the oppressed ladies who, just in case you happened once again not to notice the obvious, are wearing headscarves, of all things. It’s as if the caption of the Economist’s picture of Boop reminded us that she wasn’t concealing her boobs behind a loose garment. What nonsense. Note also the ‘journalist’ is not named; for all we know she could be an Chinese secret agent; and the caption calls her a ‘Shiite Muslim’, to be sure we get the point she can be nailed not once but twice!
The black-and-white photo of the grouping of three woman in front of a plain background is just a classic kind, a bit of NY Times artsy class. On the other hand, it is obviously meant to emphasize that women are involved, which it does successfully. I find them quite impressive.
In short, stop buying newspapers.
Pedro

“On the other hand, it is obviously meant to emphasize that women are involved, which it does successfully.”
Yes, but they are old, scarved and on the sidelines. They look more like the old die-hards we get shown every now and then at communist rallies in the ex-Soviet Union.
“In short, stop buying newspapers.”
Stop buying American newspapers
seize

I think that between the three photos printed (out of the probably countless they had to choose from), the Times made the right order. The crowd shot shows the confusion, the tussling, the signs (which are important to the protestors) and gets around the unfortunate problem when you have these types of photos: no big faces. The detail is probably clear enough to see many of them, but the big one is what draws you in as a casual observer. Who is he? Why is he on a sign that big? He’s not as recognizable as other world leaders, It goes from photo to caption, caption to headline, headline to first three grafs.
For those who (buy the paper and) turn to the jump, they see the people. They see the contrast of these women versus the other images splayed across other covers (see Newsweek, Economist, et al). At this point the should also be reading more of the story, too. Faces, emotion – this is what this photo has.
The last photo is probably the best one of all, but not great for the cover. It shows the scale of the size of this crowd, but the view is not in the crowd like the first but rather from the viewpoint of a journalist detached from the emotion. That scale shows the amount of people there, how intense this situation was. Not for the cover because this journalist has no bearing on the situation, but still solves the problem of just having a sea of people indistinguishable in size.
This isn’t about one-ups-manship on feminist roles. It’s about what photos tell what story in what natural progression. This series for me does it.
And that other photo has not been proven to be fake. Other commenters have said they saw it in person and it looks plenty real to them. We do not live in Wag The Dog 24/7. Critical eyes, yes. Conspiracy theorists, not so much.
Also: Pedro, what difference does it being an American newspapers make? Plenty of international press use the same wire services. What difference is it that it’s a newspaper have to do either? Since everyone seems to have such a distrust of the media, why not banish all versions of it and rely only on what you can observe for yourself and make your own judgments about. Remove the middle man and you’ll remove the filter, too. But aren’t your own eyes filters, too?
Quentin

Sorry, seize, for all their pretensions U.S. newspapers have become especially execrable, above all the fallen NY Times which has become basically something for everyone and nothing for anyone. Television news is generally just beyond the pale. Sorry, again, people in some countries outside the U.S. get much, much more information from their newspapers, even about the U.S., than people do in the U.S. The quality of U.S. news coverage is very disappointing, worrisome. It wasn’t always like that: stop buying U.S. newspapers.
Your remark on the snapshot of the ‘journalist’ particularly struck me: a detached, analytical observer casting a judicious glance over a sea of emotion. The ‘journalist’s viewpoint’, as you call it, is in fact the photographer’s and the reader’s; the woman is a prop to draw the reader into the panorama, a hackneyed device of European painters which goes back centuries. The inclusion of smaller, more detailed photos of women cannot be dismissed as accidental; they are a nod to Muslim woman who are, you see, also alive and active. A bit condescending, maybe. The captions of the photos are horrendously childish for such a newspaper. Have you ever heard of a ‘Catholic Christian’? If you have, then there must also be ‘Catholic Muslims’ or even ‘Jewish’ ones. Obviously the media (and the Bush regime) have a lot to say about Lebanon and the rest of the Middle East without knowing much about it or, better yet, having empathy for the people and their concerns. They are different from us! I wouldn’t pretend to understand either.
seize

Quentin: I don’t disagree that American journalism is poor shape. But there was never any justification on why not to buy American papers. The post went from criticizing the photos to saying stop buying newspapers. That was problem. No context. If it was over the pictures, I would disagree wholeheartedly. If you think they’re too pretentious, well, fine, I can see that. Please let me know which papers I should be reading in addition to the American ones I read currently and the press from other countries online.
And I also can’t defend the captions. They’re just lame. No insight on what’s going on. One should be able to read the headline-caption-and-some-grafs to get the gist, and I don’t think it’s there. I also haven’t read the story, since that doesn’t seem to be the issue on this site.
But you’re misstating what I said about the journalist in the photo. What I said (or at least meant) was that the journalist wasn’t the focus of the story but simply there to add depth to the photo. Not depth in the insight of the story, but of the photograph for some sense of scale. She could have been anyone. She could have been a he. Something to give a sense of size and scale was needed to make the photo more accurate. Not to sex the photo up. I don’t know what’s exactly condescending about the other (2nd) photograph, other than perhaps the caption. Then again, it answers a logical question a reader might have after looking at the picture, which is what captions should do as well.
Pedro
Also: Pedro, what difference does it being an American newspapers make? Plenty of international press use the same wire services. What difference is it that it’s a newspaper have to do either?”
Good point. The difference is made, in my opinon, by
- Foreign correspondents who write articles as opposed to wire-service depeches, and
- Selecting what’s “news” and what comes on the front page or in the paper at all.
Wire depeches are used mostly to fill columns before sending the paper to press (I used to work as a layouter for a local paper). The big articles — i.e. the ones you actually spend more than 20 seconds reading — are all from foreign correspondents either of the paper itself or of another affiliated newspaper.
The real reason, though, for not trusting the American press is that, since in most foreign events America is the one making news (i.e. Iraq, Guantanao, Syria, Israel, trade wars with the EU), I’d rather form my opinions from somewhat more independent sources.
“Since everyone seems to have such a distrust of the media, why not banish all versions of it and rely only on what you can observe for yourself and make your own judgments about. Remove the middle man and you’ll remove the filter, too. But aren’t your own eyes filters, too?”
My distrust with the media has more to do with slant and omissions than with outright lies. I try to avoid slant by just picking out only the more objective facts (i.e. the Ms. Boop shot says: there were demonstrations in Lebanon) and avoid omissions by considering a broad spectrum of sources. With a broad spectrum of sources it’s also a bit easier to spot lies: they tend to creep in over a longer stretch of time with diffuse or circular sources, whereas the truth appears simultaneously in many places with clear sources.
The absolute subjectiveness you imply is only valid for completely uncritical, passive receptors.
Galloise Blonde

Firstly, I just want to say I really appreciate this site. Secondly, I wanted to point out that the women represented at this demonstration are not the only ones that were there:
http://raedinthemiddle.blogspot.com/ [scroll to the third item]
Here are some female demonstrators with both hair and boobs, but I guess they just don’t fit into the easy contrast between the interest groups that the media want to make and the narrative they are selling. I heard CNN tell me that all the demonstrators were, in fact, Syrians, not Lebanese. I wonder where that rumour started…
Pedro

Regarding the young and hip crowds in the Ms. Boop demonstration:
http://www.antiwar.com/spectator2/spec617.html
Quentin

As usual, raedinthemiddle gives a cheeky take on the issue. See also his pictures of Jewish orthodox rabbis demonstrating for the right of Palestinians to return to their homeland.
As Pedro says, the only way to approach news is to follow as many sources as possible. For instance, the BBC World Service gives a lot of news with a slightly different viewpoint from the U.S. one. The Guardian might a bit extreme for some readers. For Iraq see Juan Cole. Salon often delves deeply. Etc.
Seize, I have to admit my annoyance with the Economist’s Betty Boop photo boils largely down to the hyped exuberance of the U.S. press about the Martyrs’ Square demonstrations: they represent democracy and they are for us (=U.S.). Anyone in the news business or in politics must have known that a large body of Lebanese people might well have another opinion, for whatever reasons, good or bad. Curiously, Walid (spelling?) Jumblatt, the Druze leader who not so long ago applauded the deaths of Americans in Iraq, publicly said he had seen the light of democracy since the Iraqi election. The neocons (BBC) and the press picked up on this without asking themselves (at least not openly) if the man just jumps on any bandwagon which might happen to pass along. I’d tend to think he does. Jumblatt’s remark was passed on and expanded on in publication after publication. Instead, criticism on the part of opinion makers, maybe even a touch of cynicism, would have been refreshing.
Regarding the second NY Times photograph, actually only the second part of the caption seems a bit condescending because, after all, we’re not in Main Street, U.S.A., but in Beirut, Lebanon, Middle East. The picture itself is dramatic and informative, emotional. The one of the woman looking from the balcony isn’t objectionable. But I still can’t believe she’s a journalist, and if she so, so what.
In fact, all three pictures tell us very little that we don’t already know from the articles. But they make more of an impression, don’t they?
This is my favorite site nowadays, and all the postings are bright and stimulating. Thanks.
Quentin

As usual, raedinthemiddle gives a cheeky take on the issue. See also his pictures of Jewish orthodox rabbis demonstrating for the right of Palestinians to return to their homeland.
As Pedro says, the only way to approach news is to follow as many sources as possible. For instance, the BBC World Service gives a lot of news with a slightly different viewpoint from the U.S. one. The Guardian might a bit extreme for some readers. For Iraq see Juan Cole. Salon often delves deeply. Etc.
Seize, I have to admit my annoyance with the Economist’s Betty Boop photo boils largely down to the hyped exuberance of the U.S. press about the Martyrs’ Square demonstrations: they represent democracy and they are for us (=U.S.). Anyone in the news business or in politics must have known that a large body of Lebanese people might well have another opinion, for whatever reasons, good or bad. Curiously, Walid (spelling?) Jumblatt, the Druze leader who not so long ago applauded the deaths of Americans in Iraq, publicly said he had seen the light of democracy since the Iraqi election. The neocons (BBC) and the press picked up on this without asking themselves (at least not openly) if the man just jumps on any bandwagon which might happen to pass along. I’d tend to think he does. Jumblatt’s remark was passed on and expanded on in publication after publication. Instead, criticism on the part of opinion makers, maybe even a touch of cynicism, would have been refreshing.
Regarding the second NY Times photograph, actually only the second part of the caption seems a bit condescending because, after all, we’re not in Main Street, U.S.A., but in Beirut, Lebanon, Middle East. The picture itself is dramatic and informative, emotional. The one of the woman looking from the balcony isn’t objectionable. But I still can’t believe she’s a journalist, and if she so, so what.
In fact, all three pictures tell us very little that we don’t already know from the articles. But they make more of an impression, don’t they?
This is my favorite site nowadays, and all the postings are bright and stimulating. Thanks.
http://blog.thought-mesh.net Annoying Old Guy

I continue to be amazed that people will condemn in public any effort toward liberal democracy if it might possibly benefit the oft. Might not the effect on the locals he more important than the impact on American foreign policy? Or are people openly supporting a foreign occupation in violation of UN resolutions?
In terms of imagery, doesn’t any one wonder why the signs were in English? Doesn’t that indicate a media event targeted at Western audiences?
Munguza

The reason the NYT cover photo is all-male is because Hizb Allah organizers separated male and female participants during the rally, in accordance with orthodox Muslim practice.
Robert Fisk noted this in his report on the event, as well as the fact that some rally participants were bused in from Syria.
The traditional dress of the women at the pro-Syrian rally is an already-obvious thing for The Times to note, however, since everyone knows the rally was organized by Hizb Allah and that the anti-Syrian rallies were overwhelmingly Christian.
It’s a bit like captioning a photo of the St. Patrick’s Day Parade with, “far more men carrying mugs of green beer
attended than have been present at the San Gennaro Festival in Little Italy.”
http://www.livejournal.com/users/vicfitz82 Victor

Hm. Comparing these photos to the “Betty Boop” photo, the first thing that strikes me is the between the photographer and the subjects. In my experience, photographers who feel uncomfortable in a situation will stay farther away from the action. Perhaps the photographer(s) had an ethnic, cultural, or ideological problem with the situation? Maybe the “Boop” photographer felt more comfortable among the anti-Syrian demostrators and was more willing to enter the crowd to get intimate photos, whereals there was more apprehension towards the other rallies?
Or, maybe to the editor, The Story is “large groups of Lebanese protesting?” No need to get close, just watch from a distance as this whole situation unfurls. Besides, we have to save print for the Michael Jackson trial.
(Sorry, just expressing my personal beef with news media consumption trends of Americans. Maybe American Journalism is in decline as many people on this website feel because the majority of Americans just don’t care? Well, I’m glad to see at least people on this website care about the news.)
Quentin

Of course the signs are in English. Otherwise most people visiting this site and around the world couldn’t read them. Very many (most?) Lebanese (especially young ones) and lots of people all over the world can read such basic English. The Arabic-speaking people who can’t, know what’s going on anyway. After all, the U.S. is THE main player in all of this.
Are the Hezbollah women wearing ‘traditional dress’, Munquza? I’d say they’re wearing what for them is usual dress, just like woman in the U.S. don’t customarily walk around in sarongs. Maybe ‘Muslim traditional dress’ as opposed to ‘Western traditional dress’. All the basic outfits western women wear are also socially determined and therefore limited. Men’s clothes too, even more so.
I wonder what Fisk’s source is for the people bused in from Syria. How many people would that then be?
Annoying Old Guy, let the Lebanese have their liberal democracy or whatever they want, with the inclusion of the people at the Lebanese Hezbollah rally. It’s a bit rich to worry about a foreign occupation of Lebanon after everything that happened in Iraq: maybe the U.S. will have John Bolton table a resolution at the U.N. that the U.S. must promptly leave Iraq.
The French supported the U.S. because France created Lebanon by carving it out of Syria when it was the ruling colonial power.
MonsieurGonzo

the counter-rally was huge ~ it completely dwarfed, engulfed the preceding Anti-Syria rally in scale, and that was the story, really…
…that so many people in Lebanon could be so quickly turned out; it was (for us) as if a hitherto unknown sleeping giant had been suddenly awakened.
it was their scale that caused Bush to pause, even to backtrack. Bush suddenly seemed like a prosecutor who, while we the jury watched as he bore down to (exploit the moment for his own political gain) make his case for “democracy, now!” ~ got an unexpected response from his own witness!
Bush was forced thus to quickly change his position on so-called “democratic processes” that (Doh!) only serve to enable more Muslim Fundamentalist Theocracy in general, and Hezbollah -type resistance groups in particular.
the story is scale realpolitik; MASS = Weight x Volume, thus.
imho “gender”, sadly ~ remains trivial; ie., eyeball glue :-/
BSD

Hezbollah organized the rally along Shiite lines; and those lines dictate that men and women are separated in gatherings of this size. Why specifically? I don’t know. But odds are that in order to photos of Shiite women and men protesting in this way, you’d have to piece together all-male and all-female shots.
aethorian

It’s Fashion versus the Furies (who look as if they may have handed the man on stage right his head).
Fashionable images — largely judged by the subjects’ choice of clothing — are more appealing to Western eyes. We’ve also come to accept the notion that less clothing equals freedom, and more clothing equals repression, particularly with women. When we see Middle Eastern women clad from head to foot, there’s a tendency to discount their beliefs as old-fashioned, coerced, or brainwashed. But when they mirror our selective vision of womanhood, we see progressive, enthusiastic youth participating in the latest democratic New Wave. This is a serious mistake: there’s more under those head scarves than meets the eye.
In his Betty Boop comments, quentin pinned it down nicely:

About the LA look, yamamoto, there were doubtless well-educated, middle class people in the Lebanese Hezbollah crowd who must have looked different. They’re not cast in the LA mold. Isn’t that what a lot of western misunderstanding of the Middle East is about: they want so much to be and look like us; or we want them so much to do that.

…mainly so we can feel at ease, but my money’s on the more formidable Furies.
aethorian

Re Victor’s comment above:

…the first thing that strikes me is the between the photographer and the subjects. In my experience, photographers who feel uncomfortable in a situation will stay farther away from the action. Perhaps the photographer(s) had an ethnic, cultural, or ideological problem with the situation?

Not so with the photographer of the three women, Lynsey Addario. She’s right in the thick of things: see Jihad’s Women, Kidnap, and Line of Fire. Her agency, Corbis, carries 1,000 of her photographs.
seize

Getting in close and focusing on one person or a few distorts the scale of the protest. You can only get that far away. Showing them only as a crowd makes them not individuals. You can only have close ups if you get in it. They variety of these photos give that, and give it well.
Sheesh, the Economist focuses on one subject, and people get upset. The NYTimes focuses on a crowd, and people cry foul, too. What would make you guys happy? No pictures at all and really great writing instead?
Quentin

Right, good writing: a hundred words are worth ten thousand pictures. Only the Economist photo bothered me for the reasons I’ve stated. The NY Times photo of three women is very good, I’ve finally decided. But all the photos are worth talking about, and have helped to put Lebanon in my thoughts. Monsieur Gonzo very elegantly dissects Mr. George W. Bush who can’t make up his mind from one minute to the next: opportunism. I wouldn’t really want a newspaper or magazine without photos. They’re the first thing I look at. Sometimes the only thing!
Tilli (Mojave Desert)

“The three women” is an archetypal tryptich (sp?).
Seems to be a grandmother, mother, daughter.
The daughter is very beautiful.
seize

See the composition of the second photo bothers me mostly because of that random guy in the corner. And that photo also doesn’t give the scale of the protest, just emotion. If the photos didn’t exist, how could I picture it? What does their president look like? How could I imagine a crowd that big? How could I see their faces and their confusion and their determination and their passion? If I used photos like the Economist one earlier as my basis, I would imagine all the women could look like that in this protest. You yourself said you wouldn’t want a photoless newspaper. There’s a reason the Gray Ladies don’t exist anymore. European papers run more photographs, more advertising on the front page, and are doing the same things U.S. ones with even more flash. The writing may be better, but someone walking by isn’t drawn to body copy. They’re drawn to photos. Recall the recent study where chimps would pay money to see pictures of other chimps that were leaders in the group and pictures of sexy chimps. That’s the level we work on, only coupled with the idea of selling a newspaper is a telling of an important story.
MonsieurGonzo

“Right, good writing: a hundred words are worth ten thousand pictures…” -Quentin
…jeunesse dorée
Quentin

Monseiur Gonzo links us to a Guardian article which says, explains much, and largely supersedes the information provided by the news pictures. It says everything. I would have missed it otherwise. A cropped version of the NY Times three-women picture, less the stray male head and one woman, appears in the advertisement of this site on Juan Cole’s main page. The poster of Bashad becomes more prominent. There is a great take-down of Jack Straw in the Lebanese Daily Star (www.dailystar.com, for a true link see Cole) by a parliamentarian who sharply rebukes Straw for criticizing (meddling in) the Lebanese goverment’s affairs, even reserving the right to help chose Britain’s PM.
Quentin

Monseiur Gonzo links us to a Guardian article which says, explains much, and largely supersedes the information provided by the news pictures. It says everything. I would have missed it otherwise. A cropped version of the NY Times three-women picture, less the stray male head and one woman, appears in the advertisement of this site on Juan Cole’s main page. The poster of Bashad becomes more prominent. There is a great take-down of Jack Straw in the Lebanese Daily Star (www.dailystar.com, for a true link see Cole) by a parliamentarian who sharply rebukes Straw for criticizing (meddling in) the Lebanese government’s affairs, even reserving the right to help chose Britain’s PM.
seize

that’s labelled “comment.” it’s not an article. not trying to devalue it, because it is good. but it’s not reporting in the same sense as a news story. columnists can report, too, but they’re definitely pushing a message that they want versus getting a story and telling it fairly.