Yahoo! issues statement on photo controversy

[MIMIC]

Yahoo! News regrets that these photos and captions, viewed together, may suggest a racial bias on our part. We remain committed to bringing our readers the full collection of photos as transmitted by our wire service partners.

Read the entire statement here:
http://news.yahoo.com/page/photostatement

[GreenPartyVoter]

1. ooh based on the looting thing?

[zippy890]

2. we made a difference!

thanks for the post -- there were racist captions for sure

[Liberal Ohioan]

3. What was this about?

[justabob]

4. White people find, black people loot

[Stephanie]

5. maybe regarding the white people "find" black boy "loots" captions

[KyndCulture]

6. well it wasn't really Yahoo's fault... they just use the wires.

but that was nice of them to do.

[ohio_liberal]

8. You're right

I don't know about the national media, but here locally the photographers themselves write the captions and they are OK'd by the editors

[Fleshdancer]

7. wow, so it was Yahoo who wrote the captions? I thought it was AP

:shrug:

I know it was posted on Yahoo but who wrote the captions?

[ohio_liberal]

9. AP and AFP

Yahoo doesn't write the captions

[Fleshdancer]

10. ok, that makes more sense to me

so I guess AP hasn't released a statement on the subject?

Since Yahoo just pulls the photos and captions off the wires, I'm impressed that they apologized when it could easily be blamed on AP. It shows a level of sensitivity that is rarely seen in corporations today.

[Don Claybrook]

11. Good job, DU. You straightened them out in a hurry

Keep the fire at their feet.

Our road is paved with bones.

[Oeditpus Rex]

12. Anybody read this Salon story?

"Looting" or "finding"?

Jack Stokes, AP's director of media relations, confirmed today that (photographer Dave) Martin says he witnessed the people in his images looting a grocery store. "He saw the person go into the shop and take the goods," Stokes said, "and that's why he wrote 'looting' in the caption."

Santiago Lyon, AP's director of photography, told Salon that all captions are vetted by editors and are the result of a dialogue between editor and photographer. Lyon said AP's policy is that each photographer can describe only what he or she actually sees. He added, "When we see people go into businesses and come out with goods, we call it 'looting.'" On the other hand, he said, "When we just see them carrying things down the road, we call it 'carrying items.'"

Regarding the AFP/Getty "finding" photo by Graythen, Getty spokeswoman Bridget Russel said, "This is obviously a big tragedy down there, so we're being careful with how we credit these photos." Russel said that Graythen had discussed the image in question with his editor and that if Graythen didn't witness the two people in the image in the act of looting, then he couldn't say they were looting.

[AlamoDemoc]

13. What else would they say, that "we have made a mistake" ?

Bullshit

[joshcryer]

19. Yahoo! didn't say they made a mistake...

I'm seeing a lot of people here jumping to conclusions, it's kind of sad really. Yahoo! is saying that the regret the implication, but that they couldn't really control the implication. The Bloggers just made it into a controversy:

According to the actual photographers:

http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=17204

From it:

"I wrote the caption about the two people who 'found' the items. I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word. The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water - we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow. I wouldn't have taken in, because I wouldn't eat anything that's been in that water. "

The photo of the black man, was taken by another photographer. According to the editor in this story:

http://www.salon.com/news/feature/2005/09/01/photo_controversy/?x

"Jack Stokes, AP's director of media relations, confirmed today that Martin says he witnessed the people in his images looting a grocery store. "He saw the person go into the shop and take the goods," Stokes said, "and that's why he wrote 'looting' in the caption.""

from: http://messages.yahoo.com/bbs?.mm=next3&action=m&tid=hvkatrint32f0&sid=37138446&mid=20

[davidinalameda]

17. what bullshit

in the picture of the white woman, it said that she got the food from a store

did they think she had a key to it???

:wtf:

[dogday]

14. Oops Sorry

oh, thanks so much, we all feel so warm and cozy now don't we....

[blondeatlast]

15. "Regrets?" How about "APOLOGIZES?" I've apologized for hurting

others when I did it however unintentionally.

WHAT THE FUCK DOES IT TAKE TO GET SOMEONE, SOMEWHERE, TO DO THE CLEARLY RIGHT THING FOR ONCE???

No dice, Yahoo. CYA does not equal credibility with me.

Edit: I'm not asking them to claim it was racist; just apologize for the appearance that it was.

[Rex]

16. LOL of course they regret it! They got caught!

I wonder if that will get them off the hook?

[mom cat]

18. Yep! Caught red handed. May teach them to be more careful!

[Oeditpus Rex]

20. Why is this so hard to understand?

The AP photographer saw the person in the photo go into the store and take the items, and therefore was justified in writing "looter" in the cutline. The AFP photographer did not witness looting and therefore could not assume the items were looted.

Nothing was implied here but a lot has been inferred. It's an unfortunate (for the AP) coincidence that the "looter" was black and the people in the other photo were white, but no apology is due for a coincidence or for what readers infer.

[applegrove]

21. Yup! That little guy has a box of diet pepsi in his armpit. Terribly

sad. What is happening to your country.

If you read Nials Ferguson's book - he implies that African Americans will move from the USA to administer foreign properties for corporations. He implies it is better than them being over-represented in the military.

***holes!

After creating all the wealth in the USA for the first few hundred years and seeing none of it...now african Americans are going to move out of the country - just because they are no longer needed as workers.

That is apartheid. I would not doubt if part of the "payoff" to not helping the poor in NO is to get them disgusted with the USA so they move to other countries. The messages from the 'big ole pile of snakes fucking' are always so multi-layered.

Hope Al Sharpton realizes for good where the GOP stands.

[sundog]

22. yes!

boom! :7