Here's an interesting interview with Ben Curtis over at the New York Times Opinionator blog. The topic of discussion is a series of photographs which caused something of a controversy back when Snapped Shot was first getting online. (Article #2, even!)
Curtis understandably stands by his work -- I won't fault him for that -- but then makes a rather curious statement:
BEN CURTIS: If the Lebanon war had been covered by the much smaller number of photographers that the media has there on a normal basis, you probably wouldn’t have seen half of these things, simply because there would never have been a photographer there to record them. Now, when you have a massive media influx, you’re going to get more comprehensive coverage of every single aspect of that war, and there’s going to be photographers around all very close to the scene for a lot of those incidents.
To which I'm compelled to ask: If there are large numbers of photographers covering the war, but each and every one of them is being told by one side of the conflict what they can and cannot take pictures of, how does this make the coverage more accurate?
This is largely the same discussion I've had previously with Christopher Anderson, who maintained that such blatant manipulation of the press is neither unusual nor unethical. (While I can generally agree with that sentiment, for the press infer to their readers that their coverage is totally uninhibited by pressure from any given side in the conflict in shaping its coverage is not!)
Anyway, the whole interview is worth a read, so be sure to click on over and read the rest. And, in case you're curious, you can find past coverage of Ben Curtis here at Snapped Shot over yonder.
(h/t Dave Bender)
Update: CAMERA Snapshots (no relation) highlights another very interesting part of the conversation, which I highly recommend that you read!
Update x2: Carl in Jerusalem has more--including a link to part 2 of the interview.
Tags: AP ben curtis #DailyFodder