NY Times On Why They Have Not Published A Single Picture Of A Hamas Fighter: We Don’t Have Any…After my piece Thursday morning asking why mainstream media outlets aren’t showing photos of Hamas fighters in Gaza, The New York Times offered me this response: We don’t have any.
Of the 37 images that make up the Times’ most recent three slide shows of photos from the conflict, there’s not a single shot of a Hamas rocket launch (though more than 2,800 rockets have been fired at Israel) or of Hamas fighters using mosques, schools or hospitals as bases of operation.
Why not? After all, Hamas attacks against Israel are crucial to understanding what’s underpinning this conflict.
Here’s what Eileen Murphy, the Times’ vice president for corporate communications, says:
Our photo editor went through all of our pictures recently and out of many hundreds, she found 2 very distant poor quality images that were captioned Hamas fighters by our photographer on the ground. It is very difficult to identify Hamas because they don’t have uniforms or any visible insignia; our photographer hasn’t even seen anyone carrying a gun.
I would add that we would not withhold photos of Hamas militants. We eagerly pursue photographs from both sides of the conflict, but we are limited by what our photographers have access to.But here’s what I don’t get: With the hundreds of journalists there, including numerous photojournalists with experience covering bloody conflicts in Syria, Ukraine, Iraq and Afghanistan, how is it that they aren’t able to get any images of Palestinians fighting the Israelis? We know these images exist — unless you believe the Israel Defense Forces is fabricating its footage of Palestinian fighters using ambulances to transport rockets, firing from hospitals and mosques, and launching rockets at Israel.
http://www.jta.org/2014/07/31/news-opinion/nyt-on-why-no-photos-of-hamas-fighters-we-dont-have-any-1----------------------------------------------------------------------------
I never realized that until now. Even during the vietnam war, WWI, WWII, even before photography was invented, images or drawings of both sides of a conflict have always been represented, documented. Not for this conflict. You only see dead children, crushed hospitals and exploding donkeys. Never a proud hamas fighter near its Qassam rocket ready to be launched from inside a UN school. Why is that? I think Foxnews is responsible for that. Not a doubt about it...