Holy shit this stuff cannot be an accident
Totally. This is likely a situation where the simplest answer is the correct one. It's such a perfect example both of the potential for implicit bias to color our choices and of the potential for innocent decisions in news coverage to have dramatic implications. I'm sure there are a bunch of journalism professors figuring out how to fit this into their lectures next week.
I'm Jewish and this is a little ridiculous. Calling this antisemitic is a HUGE stretch.
Here's an experiment: google image search AOC. Note how many pictures you have to scroll through before coming across that one. It's a lot. Even if they are going through their internal photo servers or photos from wire services like Reuters or AP, they still have an abundance of photos of AOC to work with. They had to specifically select that one to use. Same for WaPo and Sanders. It's not like they're just picking images out of a hat, or choosing from a small selection.
Oh, and in doing my experiment I also stumbled upon USA Today doing the exact same thing.
In the past I did, and hell I still don't know if as an institution there is a bias, I feel like that would have been leaked, but at the very least someone there is doing a stupid thing. After seeing the AOC pic, and considering they picked this picture with the antisemitic imagery AND having a big "NOT" right next to him, I can't just handwave that away.Well I'm glad most people here are not giving WaPo the benefit of the doubt. I wasn't sure.
This was explained earlier in the thread. The wire services go and take pictures and publications and sites pay for access to those photos. They typically only want photos in the article from the event or appearance being talked about or the most recent photos available. So just doing a google search for photos isn't very relevant unless it's specifically for that Hanukkah event or from that day or week the article was published.
I'm very aware of how wire services work and I literally addressed that in my post you quoted. Also, having gone back through the thread I see people have already explained to you why this is a problem and yet you're still trying to handwave it away.
Do better.
Nothing you wrote addresses what I just said at all. Publications choose relevant photos and aren't taking every image of her into consideration for use.
Even if they are going through their internal photo servers or photos from wire services like Reuters or AP, they still have an abundance of photos of AOC to work with. They had to specifically select that one to use.
They definitely had more than that one photo to work with, but they selected that one out of a pool of photos because it "fit" the best. DO. BETTER.
Also, maybe stop trying so hard to explain journalism to a journalist, especially when all you're trying to accomplish is handwaving away multiple publications' anti-semitism.
Are you sure you're reading that?
How many photos did they have from that event? What did they look like?
Are you honestly trying to play dumb and pretend that that's the only photo of AOC from that event that they had at their disposal?
Really think about what you're trying to do here. Like actually think for a second. Think about how asinine that train of thought it, and what you could possibly accomplish by being "right" here.
I didn't say it was the only photo. I suggested your experiment is meaningless because it wasn't restricted to whatever publications were choosing from at the time. We have no idea what the other photos from the event were and your efforts here don't enlighten us in any way.
oh btw here's the link to the AP image archive: http://www.apimages.com/Home
Search AOC's name: http://www.apimages.com/Search?quer...rBy=Newest&searchMediaType=excludecollections
On the right-hand side of the page you can filter photos of her by event.
From the event in New York where she endorsed Bernie, there are 40 photos of her. From the Zuckerberg hearings there are 50. There are nearly 800 from the entirety of the Russia probe.
If you scroll back and find the December 2018 Hanukkah event being referenced, I gaurantee that you will find more than that one photo of her.
I guarantee that you will find more than one photo of her on AP's archive, on Reuters, and any other major wire service.
Stop making excuses for them, especially if you have no idea what you're talking about. It's not hard to just keep your mouth closed when you're in the dark about something, or to just ask sincere questions instead of asserting some bullshit that serves only to handwave away anti-semitism.
Edit:
One thing that bothers me about all of this is the photo itself even existing as an option for media outlets at all. As a photographer, if I was going through the edits and selecting which images to "submit" after a shoot, I would have just completely ignored that particular one just because of how obvious it is. It genuinely looks dark and brooding, doesn't make the subject look great, and unless the intention was to capture that sort of emotion or pose for the purpose of negativity, I just don't see why it even got uploaded. Of course news outlets want a variety of facial expressions, angles, etc. to go with any possible headline to prevent tonal dissonance, but this is just way too on the nose (and the fact it was used by multiple outlets regarding the same incredibly positive headline).
I could maaaaaybe see the excuse of "the photographer was just trying to capture as many sharp photos as possible and worried about letting someone else do the culling in favor of just getting as many images and as much coverage as possible."
But with there being an abundance to use, there's no reason for multiple outlets to all zero in on this one, or ones like the Sanders photo for the exact reasons you stated. Even if you remove this from the wider context, it's not a flattering or even neutral photo so there's still reason to criticize it.
But putting it back in context, it's much worse. Regardless of intent, it's anti-semitic. It doesn't have to be actively bigoted, and nobody had to have the intent of attacking Jews for this to be anti-semitic. It could have been the result of unconscious biases or just ignorance, or it could have been intentional and malicious. Either way, still anti-semitic no matter how you slice it.
But no, instead of people even giving the barest minimum of acknowledgment that maybe it's unintentional, some motherfuckers just want to say "no there's ZERO anti-semitism here."
It's so god damn stupid.
There are 9 photos from the event. The first two in the sequence are the image that was used. Look through at how many times that's the deciding factor in what image is chosen.
You've said nothing that contradicts anything I've said. I have no idea what possible relevance there is to the other events you're mentioning.
You are very unjustifiable being a dick. Settle down.
I'm not unjustifiably being a dick. I'm telling you the facts, and I'm telling you the facts as a fucking journalist, but you don't want to hear it. You've done nothing but try to excuse anti-semitism.
You're being intentionally dense at this point if you can't see how me going "they had plenty of photos to work with, so they had to intentionally choose the one that has anti-semitic connotations over the others." You said yourself you found 9 on AP alone. They had 9 to choose from, but went with that specific image for that event.
They literally had to look at that one and say "this one photo best represents the story we want to tell about this Hanukkah event over the other eight."
Again, this doesn't even account for their options with other wire services.
For the last time, it costs 0 cents to just shut the fuck up and listen when you don't know what you're talking about and when other people are hurt by something instead of talking over them to assert how right you are.
Just. Fucking. Stop.