“Fauxtography” is a sarcastic neologism coined in 2006 to describe faked or phony images being passed off as news by legitimate media outlets. After a series of public embarrassments and mini-scandals, the major news services seem to have clamped down on the practice in recent years, and nowadays “fauxtographs” can generally only be found in the press releases of totalitarian regimes like Iran and North Korea.
But, as first noticed by user Tanner68 on the Calguns firearms forum, this week Associated Press has apparently let its guard down and unwittingly been duped by one of its own stringers into putting its official stamp of approval on a series of images from Lebanon which seem staged. (I say “unwittingly” here to be generous to AP; unless more evidence comes out that they intentionally perpetrated the hoax, it’s a safe bet that they probably just didn’t notice how phony the images looked.)
In my well-known original zombietime posts The Reuters Photo Scandal: A Taxonomy of Fraud and Fraudulent Photojournalism I outlined the four types of fauxtography:
1. Digitally manipulating images after the photographs have been taken.
2. Photographing scenes staged by Hezbollah [or any other group] and presenting the images as if they were of authentic spontaneous news events.
3. Photographers themselves staging scenes or moving objects, and presenting photos of the set-ups as if they were naturally occurring.
4. Giving false or misleading captions to otherwise real photos that were taken at a different time or place.
These new Lebanese AP fauxtographs seem to be of Type 2: Fake battle scenes that were staged for the camera by Sunni rebels, photographed by a local stringer, and then submitted to AP, which then released them as legitimate news photos.
Are these images of real gun battles, or simply guys posing for the camera? You be the judge:
Source and official caption: “Sunni gunmen fire during clashes, in the northern port city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Sunday May 13, 2012. Gunfire broke out in the city Saturday and continued through the night primarily between a neighborhood populated by Sunni Muslims who hate Syrian President Bashar Assad and another area with many Assad backers from his Alawite sect. Lebanon’s national news agency NNA said one soldier was shot dead by a sniper in the city early Sunday. Another man was found dead on the side of a road while a third died after a shell landed in a residential neighborhood. Photo: Hussein Malla / AP”
Source and official caption: “(Hussein Malla/ Associated Press) – A Sunni gunman fires during a clashes, in the northern port city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Sunday May 13, 2012. Gunfire broke out in the city Saturday and continued through the night primarily between a neighborhood populated by Sunni Muslims who hate Syrian President Bashar Assad and another area with many Assad backers from his Alawite sect.”
Source (same caption as above).
Source and official caption: “A Sunni gunman moves his position during clashes, in the northern port city of Tripoli, Lebanon, Sunday May 13, 2012. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)”
You can find several more pictures from the same series simply by doing an image search for “Hussein Malla” and “Associated Press”.
Readers with military experience are probably already laughing at the images, but in case it isn’t obvious to everyone else: The gunmen are purportedly taking cover (behind a useless pile of tires) and firing at an unseen enemy, but right next to them are several unconcerned bystanders who are themselves completely exposed to any return fire, and yet making no effort to hide or seek protection. Instead, many of them are standing around calmly and even laughing and smiling (as are the gunmen in some of the pictures), probably at the ridiculousness of the obviously staged battle.
It could very well be that these very same men were indeed involved in real gun battles immediately before or after these photos were taken; but in these specific images they seem to have staged an attempted re-creation of what an heroic firefight would have looked like, if it had been photographed in real time.
Because these pictures were released by Associated Press, the largest and mostly widely subscribed news service in the country, the images were reprinted in hundreds of major newspapers and Web sites. And yet as far as I can tell, no editors expressed doubts about the authenticity of the scene.
As far as fauxto scandals goes, this one is fairly minor and not particularly significant in relation to world events. Most Americans, truth be told, can barely even discern the difference between the different Islamic sects doing battle in Lebanon. Instead of this being an example of fauxtography as political propaganda, it’s more likely in this case that the photographer, Hussein Malla, simply wanted to boost his career and reputation by being the only one to capture exciting battle scenes as they were happening. He slipped these staged images in amongst his real images, and apparently his AP editors didn’t notice.
To be fair, many Arab fighters display a lack of discipline, and an embedding in civilians, even at the best of times.
The people sitting relatively unconcerned would be explained by sniper fire. Sniper fire is line of sight and there are many videos from Syria that show people unconcerned in one place, while not daring to cross a street 5 feet away.
However what gives it away is the laughing young men.
If they were engaging with a sniper, then why (in the second and third photos) are the gunmen just standing there in the open air, with no cover whatsoever? If there was a real sniper off-camera to the right, they’d both be dead within seconds.
Also, a rifle bullet would go through a car tire with hardly even slowing down. No sane person would take “cover” from sniper fire behind a rubber tire.
From the angle it looks like a sniper would only have to go through one layer of tread. This would barely even slow down a .22LR round.
The part I find interesting about this is that the photographers don’t seem to have the intelligence or professional integrity to even try to make their stuff look good. You would think they would know better by now than to try to pass off this weak crap.
Readers with military experience are probably already laughing at the images…
This one is.
The guy in the dark blue looks like a cop. He’s got a regulation haircut, stripes on his shirt, an equipment belt, and his pants are tucked into what look like combat boots. In other words, he’s wearing a uniform. He doesn’t look like a militiamen. Do Lebanese police moonlight as militia, shooting it out with enemy snipers on their days off? Can anybody explain him?
>>>>>>>>Readers with military experience are probably already laughing at the images,
…yup.
Also no propellant smoke or flying brass.
If that’s a “combat” photo I’m the Dalai Lama.
Where’s Green Helmet Man, and where are the dolls that are strategically left in the rubble?
HERE they are!
I have no military experience other than armchair, but if it were a sniper is it likely that a couple of guys waving AK-47s would be able to counter him?
It does say “clashes”, so this could just be two neighbors at their afternoon shoot-out. I mean, it looks absurdly relaxed and fake to me too. But a lot about the middle east’s endless battles is absurd. Geez, it sounds like I’m defending the pictures, when that wasn’t my intent.
What I meant to say is how great your 2006 fauxtography stuff was, and that I’m glad you’re still on the job.
In the second picture it looks like the guy did fire a couple of rounds. (shell casings in the air.) That could explain the kid in the first picture with his arms over his ears. I do think it’s a bit funny in a running gunbattle with cigarettes hanging out of their mouths. The kids sitting there in the background laughing at them is a bit strange too but staged? Naw, not a bit. Looks like all the gun battles I’ve seen in a good “B” movie.
@ 10 Perry 1949, blank rounds eject exactly the same as a ball round. Having been in the Shi’ite, once the lead started to fly, not many locals stayed around to see who won. Smoking cigarettes and smiling while under the gun was nothing I ever saw. I was 100% concentrating on keeping my team alive. These pictures are bullsh1t!
One guy is waving an AK-47, but the other has something different. What is it?
As a Lebanese, I don’t find anything fake in these pictures. Lebanese are showboats and arrogant as hell. I’m sure half their shooting is for the camera, so they can brag about it to their friends and family. And to be frank, just about every person there has a weapon. In the last picture the shadow behind the guys smiling suggests to me that there is a building obstructing. If any of you have been to lebanon, those living spaces are quite close quarters in the big cities(tripoli). I wonder if there are any wide shot photos available. To people over there, watching gunfights is compared to lighting fireworks here in the states, nothing big or new.
Hassein Malla is not a stringer. He’s a staffer who covered many countries in the region before included Iraq. But yes, I’m not convinced by them and I see them as a proof on how the credibility of The Associated Press is in decline.