Iraqian Frontline: Images from Moblogging Soldiers VI

[© Image Debbie ???? here]

See also
"Iconic War Images"
"Iraqian Frontline: Images from Moblogging Soldiers II"
"WHO DELIVERS THE ICONIC WAR IMAGES - PROS OR AMATEURS?"
"Photography, War, Iraq, Iconic Images and the Future of Photojournalism"
The Category "Iraq|War: Photos + Reports"
The Category "Iraq|War|Photography: The Meta Level"

Hopefully the last update to this story:

Reviewing again the pictures from the moblogging US soldiers from Iraq we finally had to learn that more and more "non friendly" images were removed; surprisingly other non friendly images are new (Thursday, May 27, 2004):

"hee hee!!! look at old dude on his little scooter!!! this was the resistance we met when we first rolled into baghdad...haw haw haw"




The TiredDirtySoldier had a least two stolen pictures on his moblogging site -- they can also be found in the Usenetgroup alt.binaries.pictures.military -- which originally were taken by John Moore/AP and Damir Sagolj/Reuters (screenshots with his URL; click on the images to enlarge them):

So finally there are serious doubts about the origin of other photos on his moblogging site.
The impressive text of another picture on the website of the TiredDirtySoldier was also shown together with another image at the moblogging site of another soldier. This image on the website of the TiredandDirtySoldier is the one with the most views and comments like "Man, you seriously should be considered for the pulitzer or something. Your site is simply incredible. Why arent these stories and pics being shown on American TV?" So in the end we think neither the image nor the text under the image is from him. We had serious doubts about his equipment earlier; an amateur is normally not equipped with a 21mm or 24 mm lens for working with a digital camera (SLR lens 14mm x 1.5 = 21 mm).

However there are other sites with material, sometimes shocking:

Saddam's Hiding Place. This was sent to me from a friend in the Pentagon. This is where Saddam Hussein was hiding. --Hi everybody. I thought you might be interested in seeing the attached photos of Saddam's hiding place, taken by the unit who captured him. One of the men in the unit is the son of my dad's coworker, Rolando. The straw-type hat he is wearing in one photo was Saddam's. (Link)

Shots you won't see on CNN (Link)

D Boys of 2/325th Defenders of the American way. Capt Defender at the far right. The enforcers of the night. (Link)

And hopefully we don´t ever have to write about Iraq again. If you think you´re tough: read "The Marine's tale: We killed 30 civilians in six weeks. I felt we were committing genocide." (Independent co.uk)

[© Image Debbie ???? here]

[Update July 10, 2004: It turned out that finally some/most of the images presented by one or more moblogging soldier at Yafro as an image taken by himself/themselves, were probably stolen; very often from professional photojournalists. Explanation here. We tried to assign a proper copyright to all photos of doubtful origin.]

Comments

[Jay Rosen]

I wanted to send you an email but no address: Here is something worth blogging:

Rod Dreher, Dallas Morning News columnist: "We decided to search photo wire service archives for the past month, looking for images of U.S. soldiers engaged in helping Iraqis instead of shooting at them. We were startled to discover that the photo accompanying this text was the only image of its kind that moved on the wires in recent weeks. This newspaper's photo department told me that if news photographers aren't shooting those pictures, it's because media back home aren't interested in those stories. Which justifies the reader complaints we've been hearing, does it not?" (June 1, 2004)

http://www.dallasnews.com/sharedcontent/dws/dn/opinion/columnists/rdreher/stories/060104dnediiraqphoto.5094d.html