Compare & Contrast
News photo descriptions
Note: both posted on Yahoo's News Photo website
On some list serves, the issue of racism was raised. Be sure to read below the photos.

Photo/caption credit is from Associated Press  Photo/caption credit from Agence France Press
Photo Photo
A young man walks through chest deep flood water after looting a grocery store in New Orleans on Tuesday, Aug. 30, 2005. Flood waters continue to rise in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina did extensive damage when it made landfall on Monday. (AP Photo/Dave Martin) Two residents wade through chest-deep water after finding bread and soda from a local grocery store after Hurricane Katrina came through the area in New Orleans, Louisiana.(AFP/Getty Images/Chris Graythen)

Issue also raised on Jim Romeneko's forum on the Poynter Institute's website:
http://www.poynter.org/column.asp?id=45

Topic:

Letters Sent to Romenesko

Date/Time:

8/31/2005 11:22:41 AM

Title:

"Found" vs. "looted"

Posted By:

Jim Romenesko

 

From CHRISTINE PAZZANESE: A friend alerted me to these two images of the Katrina aftermath published online by Yahoo News today. What we both found very disturbing was how two photographers taking shots of people searching for food while battling the flood waters decided a white subject "found" bread in a store, while a black subject had "looted" his meal.

Seems to me the national "crisis mode" coverage of Katrina in a predominantly black, poor part of the country presents a number of professional challenges for everyone in the media around the subject of racial and economic sensitivity.

I am curious how one photographer knew the food was looted by one but not the other. Were interviews conducted as they swam by? Should editors, in a rush to publish poignant or startling images, relax their standards or allow personal or regional biases creep into captions and stories?

Perhaps these photos will stimulate a media "gut check" as we race to tell the stories of the thousands who lost their lives and livelihoods.

 Photo controversy also raised here:
http://www.boingboing.net/2005/08/30/black_people_loot_wh.html

Photos also posted here:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/firewall/38725768/

September 1  
Update: Photographer believes couple did "find" groceries
Sports Shooter
Chris Graythen wrote the caption for his photo of two hurricane survivors with bread and soda. "I believed in my opinion, that they did simply find them, and not 'looted' them in the definition of the word," he writes. "The people were swimming in chest deep water, and there were other people in the water, both white and black. I looked for the best picture. there were a million items floating in the water - we were right near a grocery store that had 5+ feet of water in it. it had no doors. the water was moving, and the stuff was floating away. These people were not ducking into a store and busting down windows to get electronics. They picked up bread and cokes that were floating in the water. They would have floated away anyhow." (His post is low on the page.) (Related from Salon.)

September 2
Wisconsin editor tells staff not to use "looting" in captions
Romenesko Letters
Randolph D. Brandt of the Racine (Wis.) Journal Times wants his staff to use "taking." He writes: "We're not there. We can't really judge. In a flooded city that's been without largely supplies for a week, 'looting' could very well mean survival." PLUS: An update on missing Times-Picayune reporter Leslie Williams.
> AFP has Yahoo pull photo with controversial "finding" caption (AP)