by Barry Dennis

Created on: March 18, 2009

David Westin's piece on March 13 attempts to justify the position taken by Associated Press regarding artist Shepard Fairey's use of an AP photograph to create a work of art.

Whether AP (Westin is on the Board of Directors at AP and President of ABC News) is justified in their position, and I strongly support copyright protection when justified, and in furtherance of protecting writers and artists, any "creative" in fact, I can only speculate that this is a bad subject for a test case, for many reasons.

I want to take note of Westin's justification for his position based on the need and availability for AP and others to deliver "timely, accurate news and information about what is going on around us is critical to a Democratic society..."
So it is with more than a little irony that I note on a prior page of the WSJ that same day in the World Watch "clips" area a photograph by AP showing a photo and caption of two "Supporters of journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi-known for throwing his shows at George W. Bush.-rally in Baghdad ahead of his sentencing Thursday."
The children appear to be about 4 or five years old, one boy, one girl, displaying posters almost the size of each of them with al-Zeidi's touched-up face.

I would be willing to bet my last Dinar that the children had no idea who the poster subject was and were posed for the picture, and that either the AP bought the photo from a stringer and/or failed to "vet" the photo.
Neither did the WSJ editors, and no required additional information was supplied, like where were the rest of the "supporters," if there were any.

Readers are left with the impression that two small children, unidentified, are the sole supporters of al-Zehdi.
If they were, that's worth noting; if only to point out the improbability of small children arranging to design and print posters, even pay for them (donated?) ; if there were other supporters and these were posed for their cuteness, which seems so obvious- we should know. It is highly unlikely that the propaganda value of the support rally would be limited to picturing two small children, or would it?

The point is that AP's claim for their need for "flow"- the need to keep AP alive to provide all that "good, accurate information" -seems disingenuous and even dishonest in view of the evidence, so conveniently on display , that their product leaves something to be desired (in this instance).
'Hoist by their own Petard" comes to mind.

A question arises about the quality of AP's work, and their journalistic ethics, which in my opinion devalues their services and their product.
What's worse is that this is obviously propaganda, and that the WSJ has a duty, in this instance overlooked, to more fairly and accurately present the facts, which don't, and didn't, occur in a vacuum.

Learn more about this author, Barry Dennis.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.