AP claims the photographer saw the couple find the bread in the water...

[LynneSin]

...and saw the other guy looting through the store for his stuff

http://www.imdb.com/news/sb/2005-09-08/#tv5
AP Denies Racism in Photo Captions



The Associated Press has countered claims that captions on two similar photos showing hurricane survivors carrying supplies in chest-high water in New Orleans evidenced racism. In the first, a black man was described as "looting" the items; in the second, a white couple was described as "finding" them. The photos were alluded to by rap singer Kanye West during an appearance at a televised benefit concert on Friday. However, the AP has pointed out that on Friday it ran an article noting that the photographer in the first photo witnessed the man looting a store and that the photographer in the second photo witnessed the couple scooping food items out of the water.

Seriously, can we get any more lame than that!!!

[northzax]

1. maybe so

but it's irrelevant, photographers don't caption their own photos, and editors should have have more sense.

[WannaJumpMyScooter]

13. Yes, AP photographers do

for the most part, anyway.

[northzax]

14. ah, even better

so the captions actually described what happened? the white couple were observed 'finding food' in the water, and the black man may have been observed actually taking something from a store. so the captions are perfectly legitimate, right? it wasn't an editor looking at the images and making a decision on wording, they actually describe what happened, if you believe the photographers. Which means the sensitivity lies on our end...

I still think an editor, somewhere along the line, someone on the web, should have caught it.

[fizzgig]

19. actually

yes they do...even at rags like the one i work at...sometimes the only ones who see the captions (at least in print) are the page designers

[HEyHEY]

2. need to see the pics!

[LynneSin]

3. Here you go!

[HEyHEY]

5. thanks!

[petronius]

17. Here's a collection:

http://dvorak.org/blog/images/katrina/

[ET Awful]

4. I still say that if the photographer was in a position to SEE the

black man "loot" the items, the photographer was also in a position to PHOTOGRAPH the black man "looting" the items.

[LynneSin]

6. Or for that matter, see the white couple dive for bread

that would have been an interesting sight to see

[ET Awful]

9. I wonder if white people diving for bread look anything like ducks

diving for bread :) :) :)

[SemiCharmedQuark]

10. Bread and Soda

:eyes:

What a load of crap. It is either racism on the part of the editor, the person who captioned them, or the photographers who reported them.

[lakemonster11]

7. Actually, before all the hype,

when I first saw these pictures (and noted the odd discrepency in captions), I assumed that the photographers must have supplied the additional information.

I guess while I recognize that, unfortunately, racism is still an ugly force in our world, I am willing to give most people the benefit of the doubt that they are being misinterpreted as racist, at least until proven otherwise.

As a photographer (amateur) myself, I very much understand the difference in what a photographer sees in his or her own pictures and what other viewers see. The photographer remembers what happened before and after, and knows what was happening around the shot. The viewer has no such information.

To the two photographers (who would have had no idea that their pictures would be paired up at all), the information they supplied for the captions was perfectly clear and reflected the events they witnessed.

Obviously the editor dropped the ball by not noticing the racial implications of pairing those two photos and captions together.

It's unfortunate that this has hurt so many people.

[lakemonster11]

8. That said,

I wish that they would stop using the word "looting" for taking food and water from grocery stores (or medicine from drug stores, or even clean clothes or any other necessity). I don't think there was anything wrong with that under the circumstances and "looting" (obviously) has a negative connotation.

To me, "looters" were the few taking advantage of the situation to steal electronics, DVDs, and the like, not the people "stealing" food (when buying was not even an option) to survive.

[Akoto]

11. Oh sure.

The bread floated out of the store, therefor it's no longer the same as actually taking it from inside the building. This is rather a stretch. :eyes:

[LynneSin]

12. Well, that was a 46in Plamsa screen TV in the garbage bag

:crazy:

[northzax]

21. two different photographers

maybe one thought getting food didn't count as looting (as I do) and the other called it looting. It's a selective sampling of the photographers' work, it's probably simply bad caption writing and even worse editing.

[Skip Intro]

15. That's really beside the point, as the AP surely knows

its not just the images, but the images married to the descriptions in that particular context of the increasingly deadly and desparate aftermath of a disaster, at groud zero.

The media conveys messages, it is a function of what they do, and they damn well know it. An image is powerful. An image with a description even more so.

The message conveyed here is undeniable, in that so many recieved it.

Now in the context of blatant racism (had it been Nantuckett, as Brian Williams just wondered aloud on TDS), I find it hard to say, "oh, okay then."

I don't think there was a misunderstanding, just a revulsion to a blatant double standard.

The story wasn't looting, the story was survival, while the story strongly hinted at was the whites - thankfully blessed, while the blacks resort to crime.

This is the same media that gave us reports of rapes and murders - imparting an image of thuggish chaos in which the victims were to blame. Reports that now are being discounted.

Where did those stories come from?

I digress.

I just hate it when the image-makers try to tell us we didn't see what we saw.

oh, nevermind.

[Skittles]

22. THANK YOU

THE CAPTIONS WERE INAPPROPRIATE PERIOD. GAWD THESE PEOPLE JUST DO NOT GET IT, DO THEY ?????

[alarcojon]

16. Well, the freeps will buy it

Anything to deny the reality of racism.

[texanwitch]

18. Funny, I didn't know that bread just floated around in the water.

When we had the flood in Houston four year ago a lot of things floated down the street but not bread.

[NMMNG]

20. I posted the Snopes article about this (last week I think)

I can't search the archives now of course but here is the Snopes article. It says essentially the same thing. As I said before, I think the photographers are full of it.