Newsweek's "Rage" Cover: Doubling Down on Islamic Hate
I have to say, it takes some doing to actually turn the cover of a national news magazine, and a supposedly mainstream on at that, into its own, one-pass version of the Muhammed hate video. It’s one thing to pose a wailing, two-fisted image as a starting point to...
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Afghan Skid: A Sad Day When we Have to Resort to the Taliban for our War Media
Two significant “insider attacks” by Afghan alliance troop on U.S. soldiers, eight Afghan women killed in a NATO airstrike and an attack on a major British airbase that consumed $150 million worth of fighter jets and other things. All within the past week. And the sad truth is that,...
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Brzezinski’s Vanity Fair Kick a "Pol Dance" for Scarborough
So, why did she do it? “Erotic capital” for women in broadcast journalism?
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The Republican Spring (and More on "the Smirk")
Call it the Week of Long Knives, eating your own, or Republican Spring...whichever way you slice it, Mitt Romney has had a horrible week and GOP stalwarts have been liberated from party discipline.
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Before We Start Ascribing Bad Intent to Whole Countries, Regions and Cultures…
Most of the actions in play -- between the creation of the im-Bacile Muhammed video; the attack on the U.S. Embassy in Libya and the killing of the ambassador; and the chest-and-drum beating for war on the part of the Israeli Prime Minister -- are not generalized or mainstream...
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Romney and the Foreign Policy Crisis…. His Own
I don't imagine Team Romney feels they've got anywhere to go on foreign policy but up. I'm not so sure about that, though.
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Campaign ’12: The Stretch Run – Oct 10th Live Salon at Columbia University
BagNewsNotes and Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism present a live salon examining the photojournalistic coverage and visual framing of the 2012 presidential race.
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Alan Chin in Lower Manhattan: You Said You'd Never Forget
Alan Chin's moving photo-essay on the 9/11 anniversary losing its significance with images side-by-side of the near-completed Freedom Tower and his father's photo of the original World Trade Center under construction.
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James Nachtwey’s 9/11: Eleven Years Later, Like Night and Day
9/11 in 2011 9/11 in 2001 Unfortunately, the Bush administration used the emotional power of the images of 9/11, including mine, to justify and gather support for an ill-conceived invasion of Iraq, a country that had absolutely no connection to the attack on 9/11. So things get manipulated in...
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Horrific Photo from Aleppo: War Porn or Stellar Journalism?
My question is: is the picture of Syrian rebels at the moment of death a stellar piece of journalism and an essential contribution to our knowledge of the Syrian civil war in particular and war overall, or is this photo more a profound illustration of voyeurism and war porn?
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Obama’s "Lift" Coming Out of Charlotte: The Definitive Picture
So the question is, why is this photo attracting so much buzz on the social nets? Answer: it elects to define Obama’s standing coming off Labor Day and the conventions. While Nate Silver rummages through the post Charlotte data and hints about a statistically significant shift Obama’s way, the...
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What's Wrong With this Picture: the Gabby Giffords DNC Appearance and Gun Violence
With the party congratulating itself for programming Gabby Giffords’ final convention night recitation of the pledge of allegiance, and so many news outlets having extolled Gabby’s proud but not exactly fluid or easy rendition as a brilliant Hallmark moment, it’s worth stepping back and taking a closer look at...
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The DNC in One Picture: "Obamacare"
If the Administration has had trouble framing the argument on any of a number of issues, the convention provided the opportunity, some planned, some unplanned, to boil the politics down to one picture … aiming for the heart or the gut rather than just the head. Speaking of heart,...
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DNC Final: The Obamas, the Optics, and the Politics of Intimacy
This is not about me, it’s about you. If the Obamas are about anything, they’re about breaking down the (perceptual) distance between themselves and the American people. They are way dialed in to what’s essential and also what’s popular. The are about doing what they can as often as...
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Two Views of Racial Politics from the Same Democratic Convention Shoeshine Stand
Watching the Democratic Convention (or the RNC stage) this year, it’s pretty clear there’s nothing new or special about WASPs and Anglos. While the Republicans, on the other hand, bent over backwards to populate their show with darker shades, with an emphasis on Latino women, a glance at the...
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Bill Clinton and Barack Obama: The "Empty Chair" in Charlotte Last Night
In staging that empty space between the First Lady and the Vice President, the Obama election team visually managed the expectations of everyone in the hall and watching on TV. It was subtle and brilliant. It was a dig at the republican schtick and it succeeded where Eastwood's...
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DNC: Feeling It (Photos via Charles Dharapak/Instagram)
What Charles Dharapak has captured as well as anyone in these Instagram photos is the totally unexpected scene in Charlotte after two days of the DNC. It’s as if a party that that has been cautious and understated to a fault (possibly reflecting those aspects in the President) has...
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DNC Body and Mind: Tammy Duckworth
It was obvious Romney would be called out last night for his failure to recognize the troops or even mention Afghanistan in his RNC speech, the Obama’s being thorough and meticulous in their support and courting of the troops. (In the administration’s eyes, they’re also seen as a voting...
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