All the world's a stage

On Sunday, we showed you a sequence of photographs, four in all, depicting an incident in which it was claimed that a civilian driver of a vehicle carrying bread had been targeted by an Israeli air strike.

Above, now, is a fifth photograph in the sequence, with the body being photographed in Tyre hospital. It rather speaks for itself. Including the person who took the photograph, I count no less than ten "snappers" (or their cameras) in the frame in what could not be a more obvious example of a staged photo-opportunity.

Note, as always, the presence of "Green Helmet", managing the scene, and the active complicity of a Red Cross worker who, once again, is so obligingly posing for the photographers. I am sure that Red Cross donors will be delighted to see their money so well spent.

It is as well, therefore to remind ourselves of the "rebuttal" issued by Associated Press on 1 August, after this blog had questioned the veracity of the Qana photographs, suggesting they had been staged.

Said Kathleen Carroll, AP's senior vice president and executive editor, "I also know from 30 years of experience in this business that you can't get competitive journalists to participate in the kind of (staging) experience that is being described."

As far as I know, that "rebuttal" stands. But isn't it time Kathleen Carroll followed in the footsteps of Reuters and ate her own words?

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