Seth Rich

Exploration of Conspiracy Theories from Perspective of Esoteric Traditions

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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:13 pm

The CIA released this book today, from their library. I have no opinion on the material as, I haven't read it yet.

It's much too big to archive here so, I've just included the introduction.


Bloodlines of Illuminati by: Fritz Springmeier, 1995

Introduction:

I am pleased & honored to present this book to those in the world who love the truth. This is a book for lovers of the Truth. This is a book for those who are already familiar with my past writings. An Illuminati Grand Master once said that the world is a stage and we are all actors. Of course this was not an original thought, but it certainly is a way of describing the Illuminati view of how the world works.
The people of the world are an audience to which the Illuminati entertain with propaganda. Just one of the thousands of recent examples of this type of acting done for the public was President Bill Clinton’s 1995 State of the Union address. The speech was designed to push all of the warm fuzzy buttons of his listening audience that he could. All the green lights for acceptance were systematically pushed by the President’s speech with the help of a controlled congressional audience. The truth on the other hand doesn’t always tickle the ear and warm the ego of its listeners. The light of truth in this book will be too bright for some people who will want to return to the safe comfort of their darkness.
I am not a conspiracy theorist. I deal with real facts, not theory. Some of the people I write about, I have met. Some of the people I expose are alive and very dangerous. The darkness has never liked the light. Yet, many of the secrets of the Illuminati are locked up tightly simply because secrecy is a way of life. It is such a way of life, that they resent the Carroll Quigleys and the James H. Billingtons who want to tell real historical facts rather than doctored up stories and myths. I have been an intense student of history since I could read, and I am deeply committed to the facts of history rather than the cover stories the public is fed to manipulate them.
I do not fear the Illuminati taking over this country and doing away with the Constitution, because they took over this country long ago, and the Constitution has not technically been in effect due to Presidential emergency decrees since W.W. II. Being a follower of Christ does not mean we should fear. Perfect love for Almighty God casts out our fear for the situation He has place us in. Don’t think for a moment you are going to vote the Illuminati out of office. They control the major and minor political parties. They control the process of government, they control the process of information flow, they control the process of creating money and finally they control Christendom. (However, God controls the hearts of His people.)

I have provided information on how to respond in some of my other writings. This book will not tell you how to deal with the Illuminati families. This volume is simply the first of two volumes which is published to give an overview of what the Illuminati is. In short the Illuminati are generational Satanic bloodlines which have gained the most power. A generational Satanist described the Illuminati as "Satan’s elite."
This book is not written to cause fear. It is not written to provide names for a witch hunt. It is not written to provide another theory. This book is not about a theory. It is about the secret occult oligarchies which rule the world. When brought together, the facts of this book will begin to speak for themselves without me. I don’t ask that you take my word. Investigate for yourself. God Himself has told us that the whole world lies in the power of the wicked one. Some people after they have read my material have gone out into their own geographic area and seen for themselves that a small group of people control their nation and the world from behind the scenes. They have seen for themselves the power that secret societies exercise from behind the scenes.

This book will not be error free. There will be typos, and misspelled names, and errors of various kinds. The author is not God Almighty. I do not have every hair on these people’s heads counted. This book has not been put out with the luxury of ghost writers, editors, a paid staff of researchers and a large budget. I look at many trivial projects which the elite are able to pour millions of dollars into, and I look at the research I do when at times I’ve not had a dime to photocopy some document I want. There is so much for me to communicate about the Illuminati, who they are, what their rituals are like, and how they control the world that it has taken several years of writing to begin to give people a fully cohesive picture.
Finally, after a number of requests that I assemble my writings exposing the top 13 Illuminati bloodlines, I have taken the time to put it all together in a book with a comprehensive index. History is important. In order to know where we are going, we need to know where we have been. To control the past is to control the present. The Illuminati’s control over the entire learning process from cradle to grave gives them great ability to shape our frames of references. Jesus spoke about historical things. Paul reminded people of historical things. Josephus wrote a history of the nation of Israel.
Long ago in the dark unwritten pages of human history, powerful kings discovered how they could control other men by torture, magical practices, wars, politics, religion and interest taking. These elite families designed strategies and tactics to perpetuate their occult practices. Layers upon layers of secrecy have hidden these families from the profane masses, but many an author has touched upon their existence. I began my research when I began to get first hand reports from very informed people that an elite group did rule the world. My research into Satan’s hierarchy went fast because of my skills as a researcher and because I knew from the beginning from my informants about the reality of what I was investigating. My investigation into the Illuminati, led me to read and pray about thousands of books. The quantity of books, newspapers, magazines and manuscripts and papers which were read to get me to where I am today numbers in the many thousands. I do not know how many nights I stayed up studying and finally collapsed into sleep with blurred red eyes.
I do know that I was driven enough in my study that I often would not stop until my eyes and mind could go no further. Men and women with sharp intellects like Edith Star Miller (author of Occult Theocracy) and Alexander Hislop (author of The Two Babylons) have tried to research the occult world and the connections between the different groups. I first read Hislop’s book in 1981. His book shows that there is a continuity between the ancient occultism of the Mystery Religions and modern day religion. Edith Star Miller’s Occult Theocracy was very helpful for me to rapidly see some of the many hidden historical and operational connections between occult groups today. Finally, the book Holy Blood. Holy Grail and its first sequel The Messianic Legacy gave me a deep insightful look into the 13th bloodline. But my understanding has been lifted by countless other investigators, who are worthy of praise because they dared to challenge the power structure to get to the real facts.

In mockery and imitation of God’s 12 tribes, Satan blessed 12 bloodlines. One of these bloodlines was the Ishmaeli bloodline from which a special elite line developed alchemy, assassination techniques, and other occult practices. One bloodline was Egyptian/Celtic/Druidic from which Druidism was developed. One bloodline was in the orient and developed oriental magic. One lineage was from Canaan and the Canaanites. It had the name Astarte, then Astorga, then Ashdor, and then Astor. The tribe of Dan was used as a Judas Iscariot type seed. The royalty of the tribe of Dan have descended down through history as a powefful Satanic bloodline. The 13th or final blood line was copied after God’s royal lineage of Jesus. This was the Satanic House of David with their blood which they believe is not only from the House of David but also from the lineage of Jesus, who they claim had a wife and children. The 13th Satanic bloodline was instilled with the direct seed of Satan so that they would not only carry Christ’s blood--but also the blood of his "brother" Lucifer. </p>
One of the bloodlines goes back to Babylon and are descendent from Nimrod. Down through the years the occult world has remained hidden from the history books. (Publishing and education have been controlled privileges.) They have ruled behind the scenes. The Mystery Religions each had their secret

councils which ruled them, and these councils themselves came under the guidance of a secret supreme Grand Council or Governing Body. The Mystery Religions in turn ruled the masses and the political leaders. When I first began investigating the Illuminati a clear picture developed that the history books were doctored, and that great power was concentrated in the hands of oligarchies around the world. But who were these powerful people? I have been repeatedly asked, "If there is a conspiracy who are the conspirators?" That is what this book is about. The history books are full of information about the elites and the masses. Interestingly, upon very close scrutiny and examination the investigator finds that the elite have perpetuated their power for centuries, and have worked hand in glove with other elites to control the masses.
When seen in better light, wars between kings no longer appear as wars between elite factions, but contrived wars to control the masses by their greedy elite masters. But who are these people? The answer may not be the answer some might expect, because power comes in many shapes and sizes. Power doesn’t have to have high visibility to be active. In fact, due to the evil dark nature of these evil bloodlines they have traditionally tried to remain secret. I am indebted to people who have stepped out of the generational Satanic bloodlines of the Illuminati and who have given their lives to Christ for many of the tips which got my investigations on the right track. This book tells what many witnesses of generational Satanism would like to tell, but are too intimidated to tell. Witnesses like Tom Collins, and John Todd, and David Hill have tried to testify what they themselves saw--they each were destroyed. But the truth will not die with Tom Collins or David Hill. The truth did not go out of fashion just because John Todd was framed and dishonored by the Illuminati’s henchmen. Several people from different places have confirmed that there are 13 Illuminati bloodlines. Further, several ex-Illuminati people have confirmed my list of 13 families.

It is possible that my list is off on a name or two, but if it might be off, it can not be off much, if any. I believe the facts speak for themselves. As you study these bloodlines you will also see how powerful they are. David Hill, who was investigating the Illuminati, lost his life because he had been close to the inside as a high ranking Freemason who worked for the Mafia.

I received David Hill’s research manuscript two years after I had begun reporting on the 13 families. David Hill had done what I had originally done. He had asked questions and began to dig into who pulled the strings in this country. Both David and I discovered the names of some of the more obvious powerful families. For instance, in David’s notes he writes, "Yes, it is a fact: the Mellons, Carnegies, Rothschilds, Rockefellers, Dukes, Astors, Dorrances, Reynoldses, Stilimans, Bakers, Pynes, Cuilmans, Watsons, Tukes, Kleinworts, DuPonts, Warburgs, Phippses, Graces, Guggenheims, Milners, Drexels, Winthrops, Vanderbilts, Whitneys, Harknesses and other super rich Illuminated families generally get along quite well with Communists, who supposedly want to take away the wealth of these men and give it to the people.
However, this is only double talk designed to bolster the superstructure of delusion that Communists are the enemies of all Capitalists. But Communists, like the super rich families, are not the enemies of MONOPOLY CAPITALISM: they are the foes of FREE ENTERPRISE." (Untitled manuscript of David Hill, p. 215.)
My research had already entered another dimension beyond David Hill’s, because people trying to escape being part of the Illuminati had given me the 13 family names. But each round of validation I have received is a pleasant encouragement that others have seen the same things. It was a pleasant surprise to see that this researcher had singled out some of the same families as I had. Some of the allied families if not all of them probably have intermarried somewhere with one of these bloodlines.

Because this book is a collection of things which I have written over the years allow me to review what was written. In 1991, I first self-published my Be Wise As Serpents manuscript which exposed the top 13 families. In 1992, I began my newsletter to continue exposing the Illuminati, and came out with some monographs exposing the Monarch Mind Control program and the Illuminati Plans/methods to create earthquakes. From the mid-Dec. ‘92 newsletter up to the most recent ones in


1995, I have ran feature articles exposing the different top 13 families. This book is a collection of things, I, Fritz Springmeier, wrote between 1991 and 1995 about the top 13 families.
· PREVIEW OF VOL. 2 Besides feature articles about the top 13 families, I have also written articles about the Illuminati in general. When I went to assemble what I had written on the 13 families, I realized that much of what I’d said was in the content of articles about the Illuminati in general. I made the decision to use the approximately 250 pages I’d written specifically about the 13 families as Book #1, and what I had written in general about the families, which was also 200 plus pages as Book #2. Volume two will explain how the Illuminati control the world, and what some of their beliefs are, and about their secret and semi-secret organizations.

The two books will provide perhaps the most indepth complete picture of the 13 top Illuminati families that has been done to date. In fact, I know of no other book which is devoted to exposing the top 13 Illuminati families. In Volume two, you will read about Illuminati life, Illuminati control, and Illuminati organizations including the ACL, the Bohemian Grove, the Cosmos Club, the CFR, the Club of Rome, the Council of 9, the Council of 13 which is the Grand Druid Council, the Jason Society, the Jason Group, the Ordo Saturis, the OTO groups, MI-6, MJ-12, the Mothers of Darkness, the Pilgrim Society, the Prieure de Sion, the Process Church, the Sanhedrin, the Temple of Power, and other groups. These two books will give the details behind what was written, "the whole world lieth inwickedness" and that the god of this world is in its full reality Satan.

Grace and peace be with you Fritz Springmeier, Feb. 10, 1995

https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad- ... nati.R.pdf
Last edited by kinderdigi on Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:28 pm, edited 3 times in total.
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Wed Aug 01, 2018 8:22 pm

Fritz Artz Springmeier (also known as Viktor E. Schoff)[1] is an American right wing conspiracy theorist author, formerly a resident of Corbett, Oregon, who has written a number of books claiming that Satanic forces are behind a move toward world domination by various families and organizations. He has described his goal as "exposing the New World Order agenda.

Background
Springmeier grew up with his father,[citation needed] James E. Schoof, who worked for the United States Agency for International Development.[4] His work involved developing the agricultural needs of countries internationally, including the Balochistan area of Pakistan.[4]

Conspiracy theories
Springmeier has written and self-published a number of books based on the subject of the bloodline Illuminati and their use of mind control. He has endorsed the existence of Project Monarch, an alleged CIA mind control project whose existence is based on the assertions of Cathy O'Brien.[5][6]
Springmeier's early work, The Watchtower & the Masons, focuses on the relationship between Jehovah's Witnesses and Freemasonry. In this book he describes a relationship between Charles Taze Russell and the so-called "Eastern Establishment". Springmeier followed these links into Masonry and did a further examination of the Eastern establishment.[citation needed]

Criminal conviction
On January 31, 2002, Springmeier was indicted in the United States District Court in Portland, Oregon[7] in connection with an armed robbery. On February 12, 2003, he was found guilty of one count of armed bank robbery in violation of 18 U.S.C. §§ 2113(a) and (d) and one count of aiding and abetting in the use of a semi-automatic rifle during the commission of a felony in violation of 18 U.S.C § 924(c)(1).[8][9] In November 2003, he was sentenced to 51 months in prison on the armed robbery charge and 60 months on the aiding and abetting charge, fined $7,500, ordered to pay $6,488 in restitution, and assessed an additional $200.[10] Springmeier's conviction was affirmed by the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit.[11] He was imprisoned, and was released from federal prison on March 25, 2011.[12][13]

Selected works
The Illuminati Formula Used to Create an Undetectable Total Mind Controlled Slave, Cisco Wheeler, Fritz Springmeier, On Demand Publishing, ASIN B0006QXVU4, ISBN 1-4404-9022-8
Deeper Insights into the Illuminati Formula, Wheeler, Fritz Springmeier, CreateSpace, 2010, ISBN 1-4515-0269-9
Bloodlines of the Illuminati, Fritz Springmeier, Ambassador House (November 1998), ISBN 0-9663533-2-3

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fritz_Springmeier
Last edited by kinderdigi on Wed Aug 01, 2018 9:19 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Wed Aug 01, 2018 9:17 pm

In looking at the CIA's URL for the PDF of "Bloodlines of Illuminati " .. "Abbottabad" is found in the address.

https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad- ... nati.R.pdf

Osama bin Laden's compound in Abbottabad

Osama bin Laden's compound, known locally as the Waziristan Haveli (Urdu: وزیرستان حویلی‬‎), was an upper-class mansion that was used as a safe house for militant Islamist Osama bin Laden, who was shot and killed there by U.S. forces on May 2, 2011. The compound was located at the end of a dirt road 1,300 metres (0.8 mi) southwest of the Pakistan Military Academy in Bilal Town, Abbottabad, Pakistan, a suburb housing many retired military officers. Bin Laden was reported to have evaded capture by living in a section of the house for at least five years, having no Internet or phone connection, and hiding away from the public, who were allegedly unaware of his presence.

Completed in 2005, the main buildings in the compound lay on a 3,500-square-metre (38,000 sq ft) plot of land, much larger than those of nearby houses. Its perimeter was 3.7- to 5.5-metre (12 to 18 ft) concrete walls topped with barbed wire, and there were two security gates. The compound had very few windows. Little more than five years old, the compound's ramshackle buildings were badly in need of repainting. The grounds contained a well-kept vegetable garden, rabbits, some 100 chickens and a cow. The house itself did not stand out architecturally from others in the neighbourhood, except for its size and exaggerated security measures; for example, the third-floor balcony had a 2-metre (7 ft) privacy wall. Photographs inside the house showed excessive clutter and modest furnishings. After the American mission, there was extensive interest in and reporting about the compound and its design. To date, the Pakistani government has not responded to any allegations as to who had built the structure.
More
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Osama_bin ... Abbottabad

FC2F5371043C48FDD95AEDE7B8A49624_Springmeier.-.Bloodlines.of.the.Illuminati.R
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Thu Aug 02, 2018 1:15 am

Edit/update..

I found this re: "Bloodlines of Illuminati" :

November 2017 Release of Abbottabad Compound Material

https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad- ... ments.html

So, it looks like the book was on OBL's bookshelf ?


The link contains an extremely large list of accessible reading material. Be sure to read the "caution notes".
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Thu Aug 02, 2018 11:15 pm

found on Reddit.
http://archive.is/FXcao

submitted 2 years ago by stonetear

Hello all- I may be facing a very interesting situation where I need to strip out a VIP's (VERY VIP) email address from a bunch of archived email that I have both in a live Exchange mailbox, as well as a PST file. Basically, they don't want the VIP's email address exposed to anyone, and want to be able to either strip out or replace the email address in the to/from fields in all of the emails we want to send out.
I am not sure if something like this is possible with PowerShell, or exporting all of the emails to MSG and doing find/replaces with a batch processing program of some sort.
Does anyone have experience with something like this, and/or suggestions on how this might be accomplished?
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all 15 comments
sorted by: best



[–]GateheaD 2 points 2 years ago
Add the VIPs email to a generic contact and hide it in plain sight.
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[–]exproject 1 point 2 years ago
To my knowledge, there's no way to edit existing messages, that's a possibility for a discovery nightmare.
To strip/rename on outbound/inbound you could rewrite it with a transport rule.
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[–]stonetear[S] 1 point 2 years ago
That wouldn't work on existing messages though right?
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[–]exproject 1 point 2 years ago
No, a transport rule would only affect future messages.
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[–]borismkv 1 point 2 years ago
And it requires an Edge Transport server. Address Rewrite isn't available on any other role.
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[–]exproject 1 point 2 years ago
True. I've seen people roll their own Transport Agents for hubs that can do rewrites, but that always looked a bit overkill.
Expanding on what /u/GateheaD said, you could give the VIP a "relay" mailbox. i.e. VIP@seriousbusiness.com forwards to steve@dontgiveoutmyemail.com. All your users would mail VIP and Exchange would pass it in the backend so that the forwarding email address was not exposed. Meeting Forward Notifications might give it away though, I've never had the requirement of the sender can't know who the end recipient is so I never actually quantified that behavior.
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[–]borismkv 1 point 2 years ago
The Relay mailbox thing is a good solution, but you just know the VIP is going to respond to emails that get forwarded to his personal email by using his personal email, which would of course result in the personal email getting added. I'd just give him a regular mailbox and ask him to use that if he wants his private address to be private. Ultimately, the privacy of the VIP's personal email address is something the VIP should be responsible for, not the people that person emails.
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[–]odoprasm 1 point 2 years ago
Is there no way to access and edb manually?
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[–]stonetear[S] 1 point 2 years ago
I have full access to the server - what are you suggesting with the EDB file?
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[–]brkdncr 1 point 2 years ago
If you need to control who gets to email the vip, just set up stringent spam filtering where only whitelisted people or people the vip has emailed are allowed.
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[–]borismkv 1 point 2 years ago
There is no supported way to do what you're asking. You can only delete emails after they're stored in the database. You can't change them. If there was a feature in Exchange that allowed this, it could result in major legal issues. There may be ways to hack a solution, but I am not aware of any.
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[–]stonetear[S] 1 point 2 years ago
As a PST file or exported MSG files, this could be done though, yes?
The issue is that these emails involve the private email address of someone you'd recognize, and we're trying to replace it with a placeholder address as to not expose it.
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[–]borismkv 1 point 2 years ago
As a PST file, probably not. MSG files maybe, but you would need a utility to do it, and it would be a one off kind of thing where you'd have to manually modify each email.
Moving forward, though, I would recommend that you create a mailbox for the VIP if they communicate with your environment on a regular basis. That way they aren't using their personal email and you don't have to worry about hiding it on future emails. There might not be much you can do about the past ones besides deleting them from all the mailboxes in your environment, which is possible.
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[–]stonetear[S] 1 point 2 years ago
I think maybe I wasn't clear enough in the original post. I have these emails available in a PST file. Can I rewrite them in the PST? I could also export to MSG and do some sort of batch find/replace. Anyone know of tools that might help with this?
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[–]exproject 1 point 2 years ago
Just because you have the messages available in multiple formats and locations doesn't change that it's an attribute of the envelope not meant to be rewritten. The functionality is just not built into any tool I know of. Having that functionality would create the ability to screw with discovery (I mean, there could be mitigation with versioning, but that would need other configuration)
While it may not be a read-only part of the envelope(I'm not actually sure), the only tool that MIGHT be able to do what you want is MFCMapi, and I don't think you want to play with that for this job. The chance of getting it wrong would be pretty high I think and it is not a particularly friendly tool. I'm not sure it could be scripted with it either.
My recommendation would be what /u/borismkv said. Making a mailbox for VIP and telling them to use that. Forwarding to VIPs mailbox would be ripe for them to just respond directly instead of responding through his relay mailbox.
As for your existing messages, if the current users absolutely cannot see the existing messages, you'll need to do a search and export and just forcibly remove the messages from their mailboxes. It's not clean and not advised by me, but if they don't want VIPs address out there it will need to be removed. I would do a search with his email address as the query with -LogOnly -LogLevel Full and see what kind of results you get.
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Fri Aug 03, 2018 1:08 am

QAnon CT people now being connected with Seth Rich at TrumpZilla rally ?

https://twitter.com/SalHernandez/status ... 76/photo/1

https://twitter.com/bad_takes/status/10 ... 12/photo/1
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Tue Aug 07, 2018 2:25 pm

Note: Today, editors expect quick delivery of digital images. Most delivery is done electronically. But, some still use film for specific projects. I personally think film looks better in many instances, but, beyond that, a negative or film positive, if needed, is proof that no adjustment / manipulation of the image was made. It's so easy to change the nature of a digital capture in a few minutes with PhotoShop, that some can't resist doing it.


Staging, Manipulationand Truth inPhotography

By The New York Times

Lens Blog | October 16, 2015


During this year’s tumultuous World Press photo competition, a large number of images were disqualified because of manipulation or excessive digital postprocessing. In addition, one major prize was revoked amid allegations of staging and misleading captioning.

These events sparked months of spirited discussion and introspection about ethical practices in photojournalism. In response, the World Press organization is changing its rules for next year’s contest and creating a code of ethics for photographers entering the contest. Along with Oxford University’s Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism, World Press also surveyed photographers who entered the 2015 contest. The 63-question online survey was completed by 1,549 of the 5,158 entrants. About half of the respondents were from Europe, and 9.2 percent were from North America.

One of the most disturbing findings was that more than half of the news photographers who replied said they sometimes staged photos — with 12 percent saying they did so at least half the time. All of the major wire services and newspapers in the United States forbid staging news photos.

The study’s authors said some news photographers might have responded thinking of portrait assignments, rather than news stories. “Even if that is the case, there is an important gap between codes of ethics that prohibit staging and what happens in the field,” the authors said to Lens. “It certainly suggests the idea of the photographer being a fly on the wall and not in any way affecting the news event they picture is unsustainable.”

To further the conversation on these ethical concerns, Lens asked several photographers and editors to comment on the issue and to share their experiences in the field. After reading those essays, we invite you to add your thoughts about staging journalistic photos in the comments below. We will add selected comments of fewer than 250 words to this text to further the conversation.

Stanley Greene is a founding member of Noor Images, a photography collective, agency and foundation in Amsterdam. His books include the autobiographical “Black Passport” and “Open Wound: Chechnya 1994-2003.” He won the W. Eugene Smith Grant in 2004.

I think setting up photos — where they are completely staged — is very widespread. I’ve seen it done by very-well-known photographers, mostly in conflict or disaster situations. I’ve witnessed photographers try to recreate moments when they arrived to a scene too late.

The public has lost trust in the media. We have to be ambassadors of the truth, we have to hold ourselves to a higher standard because the public no longer trusts the media. We are considered merchants of misery and therefore get a bad rap.

It seems that the honor system is not working. Editors need to be a little tougher and demand those raw files to see the timelines and those mistakes when there is a suspicion that something is not correct.

We have to get back to looking at all the frames so you can see the timeline. If you look at my contact sheets you get to see how I think. With digital files we manipulate them and edit them so that it’s very hard to track the truth.

I put the contact sheets in my book “Open Wound” because I wanted the audience to see that I wasn’t setting up shots and to show them how I thought. I wanted to show the warts and all.

There’s a lot of good guys out there, but there’s also a lot of bad guys who are giving us a bad rap. And a lot of bad guys who are getting awards. It’s up to the editors and photo festivals to hold photographers’ feet to the fire.

Santiago Lyon is the vice president of photography for The Associated Press.

Much attention has been rightfully given recently to the digital manipulation of photojournalistic images — the altering of news photographs using software in order to willfully deceive the viewer by adding or subtracting elements of a photo or by toning the image in a way that no longer reflects the reality of the scene as the photographer witnessed it.

But there is another type of image manipulation — when a photographer orchestrates a scene to fit his or her own narrative by asking the subject(s) to do things they would not ordinarily do, or by asking them to repeat things they were doing prior to the photographer’s arrival. For example, the photographer who might ask a combatant to fire their weapon so they can capture a more dramatic image. Or the photographer who agrees when the subject proposes doing something solely or primarily for the benefit of the camera — burning a flag or chanting during a demonstration.

Sadly, this “setting up” of images sometimes occurs in photojournalism, often in places where there is limited understanding of journalistic ethics. It is the visual equivalent of fabricating quotes in a written story, and it has no place in journalism.

Education and training are the best remedies to this issue. They allow the employer (or commissioning editor) to clearly define standards and expectations while, at the same time, teach and instruct the photojournalist how to behave in an ethical and truthful manner.

But sometimes it is not the photographer who manipulates the scene, but rather the organizers of media events through what is known as a “photo opportunity,” where the subject(s) of a picture are asked to pose for the photographers — politicians shaking hands for the cameras or victorious athletes holding up their trophies.

While these scenes are real, in the sense that they actually happened, they should be clearly captioned as photo opportunities for maximum accuracy and transparency.

The same accuracy is also necessary when describing portraiture — those occasions when photographers pose their subjects for formal portraits.

Photojournalists and photo editors have serious responsibilities to the viewers of their images, and clarity, accuracy and transparency are our allies.

is a member of the VII Photo Agency. His books include “Bastard Eden, Our Chernobyl” and “Interrogations.”

In practice, photography is a Western-dominated, predominantly Western-controlled profession, where global stories told from a singular cultural perspective create the ghost in the machine. Local context is obliquely considered. A choice at some point has to be taken. A picture must be taken by the photojournalist. And it is in that moment of decision when the classical entreaties of photojournalism fall short, when we elect to hide behind the aesthetic veil of approved conduct — when, in reality, our actions will always be deceitful.

We need to look beyond the photographs themselves and their representation and look to the photographers.

Photographs lie, photographers do not.

Today, there are no limits, so our struggle is to liberate our reliance on technical capabilities and place our faith in the voice of the story and the author.

There can be no one way of doing anything, and a code of ethics should not hinder the aims of photography. In fact, it must work to liberate the story from stultifying confines, and help the photojournalist to engage an audience. How do we begin the transformation?

To me, it’s simple: The story dictates the way it wants to be told. Institutions, competitions, media outlets do not.

If a story wants to be told as a series of portraits, so be it. If a story wants to be told in staged photographs, so be it. If the story wants to be told in reportage, so be it. The point is, the form is decidedly irrelevant. What is relevant, however, is how the author has decided to engage you, the viewer of the image.

Michele McNally, director of photography and an assistant managing editor at The New York Times, headed the jury for the 2015 World Press Photo contest.

A staged photo is not acceptable in news pictures that are thought to depict real-world situations and events. Portraiture, fashion and still lifes are, of course, produced and directed, which should be obvious to the viewer.

That said, no publication is immune to getting burned. For example, one of our photojournalists covering conflict in Lebanon once gave me a heads-up that I wasn’t going to see a dramatic image of a dead baby being paraded through the streets. That’s because the crowd saw the photographers and actually dug the baby’s corpse from its grave, held it aloft and paraded it. He refused to take that picture.

There was also the case of Time magazine’s Russian child prostitution cover story where the people shown were not child prostitutes, nor was the person touted to be a pimp. Five pages of pictures, all set up, unbeknownst to the editors.

There are many societies where photographers work without accepted ethical guidelines, but with a long history of producing propaganda disguised as “news.”

We operate under the credo “the truth as best we know it,” and thoroughly research a correction when we need to. World Press noted that there was no rule against staged photographs in last year’s contest rules. There are certainly magazines that would just clearly caption how the pictures were taken, and that would be acceptable, too. It is good to have this dialogue, but who really gets to define the rules of photojournalism in this time?

Sim Chi Yin is a photographer based in Beijing who often works for The New York Times. She is a member of the VII Photo Agency.

When I’ve taught young photographers, I’ve noticed some confusion over what is ethical and what is not in photojournalism. In a world inundated with imagery, some students seem to struggle to differentiate between what’s posed/constructed and what’s a found moment. And I’ve had the odd conversation with fellow practitioners, some of whom are old hands, where discussions on ethics are nervously laughed off or sometimes descend into “but Gene Smith did it too.”

It’s easy to understand how it’s very tempting when in-field to compromise on what might seem like a small matter. Hell, I’ve been tempted, when standing out in the hot sun for yet another hour, waiting for a person to go by in that spot of great light so I can make an interesting frame of a scene. Just cutting the corners a little bit would make for perfect frames in perfect light, in a much shorter time, with less effort. We wouldn’t need four years to shoot and produce one personal project.

But it’s a slippery slope. It all comes down to the integrity of the work and the person making it, in the end. Philip Blenkinsop once reminded me and a workshop class that integrity, once lost, can never be regained.

We’ve seen examples of ethical breaches among journalists across many countries. Having lived, worked and taught in China and this part of the world for several years, I sense that there is perhaps a looser understanding of journalistic ethics in places where there isn’t a strong tradition of journalism education or, indeed, where there is a history and political culture of the news agenda being driven by propaganda. For instance, in China, “news” 新闻 xinwen is still often used interchangeably as “publicity” or “propaganda” (宣传 xuanchuan), especially in the more official outlets.

I think the key is to be honest and transparent about how one made the image.

I don’t have a problem with set-up or intervened-with documentary work — that’s a different genre — as long as the viewer is not misled. It troubles me when set-up work is passed off as found moments.

Even with the introduction of clearly spelled-out stricter rules on what World Press Photo classifies as “manipulation” in next year’s contest (following this year’s controversy), while postproduction processing can be found out using forensic software, manipulation in the shooting — staging, directing — is very hard to detect or prove.

We will still have to rely on photographers to be honest and have integrity. And one hopes those basic principles can, in the end, prevail.

Darcy Padilla is a photographer based in San Francisco and is a member of Agence Vu. Her 20-year project on a woman with AIDS struggling with manic depression and drug use won a W. Eugene Smith Grant for Humanistic Photography, a World Press award this year and has been published as the book “Family Love.”

Setting up photos matters because as journalists, when we arrive at a scene, we say we witness this. We witness this and this is the truth, in practical terms, and we offer this to the public. And when you stage or pose or change that information you are jeopardizing our profession, and the trust involved in what we do. This is important to me because I don’t want people predisposed to look at my work and say that was set up, that didn’t really happen, doubting the integrity.

The first time I saw a staged photo, I was a young intern photographer at The San Francisco Chronicle covering the 1989 earthquake. I was at Crissy Field surrounded by journalists from around the world, waiting for Vice President Quayle to speak. There was this man reading the newspaper, wide open, while leaning on the police barricade in front of the crowd. The Chronicle’s headline read, “Hundreds Dead in Huge Quake.” As I started photographing him the man finished then folded up the newspaper and this photographer said, “Sir, can you open it up again and hold it?”

“What are you doing? You can’t do that,” I said, and I remember he replied, “Yes, I can do it.” We exchanged words as he took his photos. And the couple of photographers around him also took photos of what he had asked the man to do. Then they moved on. There have always been the “sometimes” journalists, and the survey does not surprise me.

I didn’t make the photo I wanted that day and since I’ve never considered setting up a news photo. I’ve always thought: I’ll try to get it the next time it happens.

And if there is no next time, then I wasn’t good enough.

After reading these statements, we invite you to add your thoughts about the photograph in the comments below. We will add selected comments of fewer than 250 words to this text to further the conversation.

Here are selected comments from readers:

Steve Liss, Associate professor of Media at Endicott College, former photographer for Time magazine


Candid = truth? That’s accountant’s truth. It’s comforting and seductive. But it’s simplistic, in my view. I would respectfully submit that a directed picture can sometimes convey a greater truth about a subject than a candid picture. We aren’t surveillance cameras. We’re thinking photojournalists searching for truth…sometimes as a direction, not a finite end. And we’re often limited by practical considerations of time and access. We’re called upon to make judgments all the time and, whether we want to admit it or not, we affect the scenes we photograph by our presence.

Before presuming to anoint ourselves the final arbiters of the truth, we might do well to ask when the last time was that we conveyed truth to our readers from a staged White House photo op?

Much magazine photography is, and has always been, directed to some extent. In the course of my own work, I’ve set situations in motion, and I’ve put up a light in circumstances where there was no light. Anathema to contemporary purists I’m sure. But I’ve never once lied to my readers. To honestly convey the essence of a story has been my life’s work. And that of much greater photographers than I. Yeah, times change. But W. Eugene Smith, much maligned by today’s practitioners of ‘superior’ morality for directing pictures, told, in my judgment, great and universal truths about humanity that strike me as just as valid as any we tell today within our lockstep definition of ‘ethics.’

Jack Zibluk


As the profession diversifies and changes, the ethical lines between staged and unstaged image use overlap and blur. As we use more video and sound, the traditions of print ethics and the traditions of broadcast ethics and other forms of storytelling don’t always coincide. In television and video, standups and narrations are often staged and it’s considered acceptable. But the photographer’s presence in a still photo as a shadow or reflection is considered unprofessional. In my classes at Southeast Missouri, where I am professor of mass media, we apply various professional codes of ethics to various case studies. Class members seldom agree on whether a staged picture can tell a truth better than an unstaged picture, which some students call “found art. The consensus is that it comes down to intent. We all agree that a willful deception of the audience is wrong. period. Beyond that, it’s pretty much an open dialogue, and I think the profession doesn’t have enough of these dialogues with professionals or with audience members.

Camille McOuat


Last year I did a personal project on heterosexual male intimacy in Istanbul. In every case I had seen the men doing the behavior, but often I asked permission before shooting. This was not to improve the photos, but for my own safety/respect to the subjects, as shooting young Kurdish men in Istanbul can be sensitive right now. Asking sometimes breaks the scene, so you gesture for them to resume. How does this figure into the debate?

Victoria Sheridan


Every time this topic comes up the stories of Eugene Smith are used as examples — yes, it is well known that Smith sandwiched negatives and orchestrated scenarios in order to make a photograph they he envisioned, but that doesn’t make it right nor does it make it an example with which to forgive our current manipulations in the profession. We study history in order to understand our past and become better not complacent nor to excuse failures. History should not be used to abdicate ourselves of our responsibilities but should be used to push us and our students to excel, move forward and be better. The histories of photography and photojournalism are littered with examples of manipulation and I assume it will continue to be so, but we don’t study history to use it as justifications for our current failures and dishonesties, we should study history in order to propel excellence.

Nick Nostitz


The question on staging and ethical behavior of photo journalism is far more complex than images being staged or not. A staged image obvious to the viewer is not unethical, be it a portrait, which is always part of reportage, or in a news setting, when demonstrators, for example, produce themselves in front of cameras (often i like to include the crowd of photographers in such scenes). The ethical questions which are rarely addressed though are the way how the images are taken. All too common are situations where crowds of photographers block the way to ambulances to get better images of the injured being carried away, or, even worse, where when mobs beat up or lynch people while escape routes are blocked by photographers. A certain amount of staging always takes place the moment a camera arrives, it is inevitable and integral part of modern society. For me the more important issue is that i behave in an ethical way while i take my photos, such as in certain situations ask for permission so i do not intrude into their privacy too much, and therefore may “stage” an image, or step back and let injured being carried away or try to stop someone from being lynched instead of taking pictures of it. What matters to me as a photographer is my interaction with the people and the subject matter i take pictures of, and that i am honest to my audience in communicating a story.



© 2018 The New York Times Company
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Tue Aug 07, 2018 2:55 pm

Steve McCurry is a really good photographer. But, I don't think he or his staff of digital assistants thought twice about doing this stuff. NatGeo is thought to publish "photojournalistic" work. With portraiture, some staging might be expected. If your portrait subject is squinting because the sun is in their eyes, you move the subject into better lighting, etc.



The 'Afghan Girl' photographer faked some of his photos. Does it matter?



Rafi Letzter May 21, 2016, 8:48 AM

Business Insider | 2016-05-21




If photojournalism had a Mount Rushmore, Steve McCurry would be on it. He's probably the closest thing to a mainstream celebrity in the field, because you can have this conversation:

"Hey, have you heard of Steve McCurry?"

"I don't think so."

"He's the National Geographic photographer who shot that 'Afghan Girl' cover."

"Oh! Him. I've seen that."

The image depicts then-17-year-old Sharbat Gula , who McCurry encountered in a refugee camp in Afghanistan in 1984 during the Soviet Union's invasion of the country. Hers is easily the most recognizable image to have ever run on the cover of National Geographic. And McCurry's photo is arguably the most famous ever taken by a news photographer.

But the shot is far from an anomaly in McCurry's archives. In the more than three decades since he launched a career shooting war and conflict in central Asia, his sister Bonnie McCurry V'Soske (who also runs his studio) estimates he's shot more than a million news and travel photos. He's among the most-awarded photojournalists of all time, and a member of the elite Magnum Photos collective.

And it turns out he — or someone who works for him — faked the content of some of his photos.

The resulting scandal has sparked hot debate on the corners of the internet where people care deeply about photo ethics. But the implications are wider.

Photos are immensely important to how we understand ourselves and the world around us. Now that a huge proportion of humanity carries powerful, internet-connected cameras in their pockets, we're collectively shooting over a trillion photographs each year. The result is a kind of species-wide visual diary.

At the same time, it's easier than ever to manipulate these photos we create — and there's massive demand to do so, as evidenced by the increasingly sophisticated processing tools built right in to Instagram's sharing app. So, even as we create this massive visual document of our world, the line between its truth and fiction grows blurrier.

McCurry, with his rare combination of 1.4 million Instagram followers and journalistic prestige, wields outsized influence over the what counts as reality on the internet.

His followers and fans come to his work for its brilliant colors and unfamiliar subjects, and receive it — emerging as it does from the camera of a famous photojournalist — as representing something honest about places they've never been. If McCurry is willing to alter the contents of those photos, it sets a new, potentially laxer standard for honesty. And it's one that makes other photographers and journalists nervous.

How the controversy unfolded

McCurry's troubles began at a gallery show in Italy.

An Italian photographer in attendance, Paolo Viglione, noticed something odd in an image McCurry shot in Cuba.

The bottom half of a man's leg fades into the steps behind it. A yellow gradient emerges where his foot should be — clearly transposed from an adjacent sign. It appears to be the result of a shoddy attempt to move overlapping objects around in the shot.

Here's the relevant part of the photo, blown up to offer a closer look:

Viglione posted about what he'd seen on his blog (site in Italian) on April 29. His tone was winking and casual, pleased with the joke of catching a famous photographer in an error. It's clearly intended as ribbing from a fan, not a take-down.

But his light nudge set off a chain of explosions. PetaPixel, a popular site for photography enthusiasts, published an article based on Viglione's blog post that has since been shared more than 23,000 times.

We couldn't reach McCurry for comment because, according to V'Soske (his sister and president of his studio), he's traveling in an undisclosed part of the continent Africa, and is not reachable. (McCurry is the rare person for whom this is in fact a plausible excuse.)

However, he did provide a statement to PetaPixel. We've added bolding to emphasize the relevant parts:

My career started almost forty years ago when I left home to travel and photograph throughout South Asia. I went into Afghanistan with a group of Mujaheddin in 1979, and thus became a photojournalist when news magazines and newspapers picked up my pictures, published them around the world, and gave me assignments to provide more images of the war.

Later on, I covered other wars and civil conflicts in the Middle East and elsewhere, and produced photo essays for magazines, but like other artists, my career has gone through many stages.

Today I would define my work as visual storytelling, because the pictures have been shot in many places, for many reasons, and in many situations. Much of my recent work has been shot for my own enjoyment in places I wanted to visit to satisfy my curiosity about the people and the culture. For example, my Cuba work was taken during four personal trips.

My photography is my art, and it's gratifying when people enjoy and appreciate it. I have been fortunate to be able to share my work with people around the world.

I try to be as involved as much as I can in reviewing and supervising the printing of my work, but many times the prints are printed and shipped when I am away. That is what happened in this case. It goes without saying that what happened with this image was a mistake for which I have to take responsibility.

I have taken steps to change procedures at my studio which will prevent something like this from happening again.

In other words, McCurry argues that his recent work is of a more personal nature, and shouldn't be understood in the context of photojournalism — but also that he was not aware of the alteration, and that it would not happen again.

PetaPixel discovered further examples of alterations with readers' help.

A child was removed from the background of this photo between its appearance on McCurry's blog and on his website:

And a Facebook user showed how a man cheesing for the camera was removed from this shot:

McCurry has not yet responded to these examples.

So what should we think about all of this?

We reached out to some visual journalists to get their perspectives.

Candice Cusic is a photojournalist who was awarded the Pulitzer Prize as a part of a reporting team at the Chicago Tribune in 2000. Craig Duff worked at The New York Times and CNN as a video journalist, before directing multimedia content for Time Magazine. Both now lecture on visual journalism and its ethics at Northwestern University. (Full disclosure: the author studied with both as a college student.)

Cusic said the core problem with McCurry's alterations is that they privilege an abstract idea of aesthetic perfection over the realities of the places he represents in his work.

"I hate [the idea of] any photographer trying to be perfect," she said. "I think it's lying."

She points toward the generations of photojournalists who may have been inspired toward their career's by McCurry's work. She says his too-perfect photos set a bad example. It's hard to tell the truth in photos she said, but, "to be perfect, well, anyone can Photoshop."

Duff took a less harsh stance on McCurry, but said photojournalism has to be strict about its rules:

"In journalism, no matter what the medium, whether it's text or photos or graphics, we're always trying to mitigate the manipulations that we do just by observing: what words we choose, what angle we choose," he said. "Because at every single step of the way you're making decisions that are representing reality in a particular way. So there's no such thing as an objective photograph — wherever you put your body to capture an image you're making decisions about all these different things. We're trying to mitigate the effect of all those decisions to make sure we're being as honest as possible."

In the Photoshop era, a number of incidents have given visual journalists reason to police the rules of their profession. In 2003, the photographer Brian Walski turned in a faked image that ended up running on the cover of the Los Angeles Times:

He was fired soon after the fake was discovered. Similarly, Reuters cut ties with freelance photographer Adnan Hajj after he added smoke to an image of an Israeli airstrike on Lebanon . A World Press Photo award-winning photographer lost his prize for staging a shot. Another was accused of dishonest editing, but eventually cleared .

All that adds up to an environment where photojournalists are understandably jumpy at the creeping threat of fakery. While many apply some minor stylistic toning to their shots, altering the substance of photos is an important taboo.

In an email to Tech Insider, V'Soske defended her brother from the accusation that he belongs in the same category as Walksi and Hajj. The bolding here is hers:


Steve is not a photojournalist. Not anymore. He hasn't been in that world for many years. Yes, he risked his life over and over again in war and conflict zones, but he is now 66 years old. Did he not have the right to transition to other forms of photography as the years went by?

Just because people want to place Steve in the "photojournalism box" doesn't mean that is where he is today. His body of work is impossible to pin down to one easy-to-understand category.

He, like many of his colleagues, occasionally accepts assignments from corporations and advertising companies when opportunities arise.

Is anyone really so naive that they believe that after all these years he is still doing only editorial work? Did he need to make an announcement? ... Does anyone begrudge him the freedom to do what he wants with pictures which have nothing to do with an assignment or a commission?

She goes on to point out that other famous photographers from McCurry's prestigious Magnum collective liked to heavily tone their images in the darkroom, and alleges — without getting specific — that others don't hold to "pure" photojournalistic standards.

"The interesting thing to me observing this whole situation, is the glee and excitement some seem to have while taking someone down," she added. "I suppose it's human nature, but I just find it sad."

So how far is a photojournalist allowed to go in their personal work?

Cusic, who now shoots primarily as a wedding photographer , said she still holds herself to the same rules as when she was a full-time journalist.

"I could probably be a much better photographer, and win more awards [if I altered photos]," she said. "But as a photojournalism educator for more than 10 years it's not something I'd ever do."

Duff said the idea that a photojournalist can create work outside photojournalism holds water — up to a point.

"A lot of photographers will do corporate work that's separate from their photojournalism. But if your name is as a photojournalist, and your brand is as a photojournalist, then it becomes a little more about 'Are you playing by the same rules?'" he said.

"It is true that if you're doing simple travel photographs and you're making pieces of art then it's a completely different set of rules. But if you are known as something, and you do that, then people are going to be suspicious about how that creeps in to your photojournalism work. And that seems to be the case here."

Did McCurry deserve his status in the first place?

Concerns about McCurry's image manipulations have amplified another complaint: That his photos are exploitative and represent a false, exotic vision of non-Western cultures for a Western audience.

Writing presciently for the New York Times just before this scandal broke, the critic Teju Cole said of McCurry's images :

The subject looks directly at the camera, wide-eyed and usually marked by some peculiar­ity, like pale irises, face paint or a snake around the neck. And when he shoots a wider scene, the result feels like a certain ideal of photography: the rule of thirds, a neat counterpoise of foreground and background and an obvious point of primary interest, placed just so. Here's an old-timer with a dyed beard. Here's a doe-eyed child in a head scarf. The pictures are staged or shot to look as if they were. They are astonishingly boring ...

The problem is that the uniqueness of any given country is a mixture not only of its indigenous practices and borrowed customs but also of its past and its present. Any given photograph encloses only a section of the world within its borders. A sequence of photographs, taken over many years and carefully arranged, however, reveals a worldview. To consider a place largely from the perspective of a permanent anthropological past, to settle on a notion of authenticity that edits out the present day, is not simply to present an alternative truth: It is to indulge in fantasy.

As news of Photoshopped McCurry prints came to light, Paroma Mukherjee wrote an essay for the Indian website The Wire that takes an even stronger tone:

McCurry's questionable ethic draws on subjects who seem happy (perhaps) to be photographed by a foreign tourist who wants to build on a fetish of the underdeveloped world and its supposed charms. Street children, rickshaw pullers, village women in saris - you name it, he had them covered. And not in a manner that expressed any visual interest in their history or ethnography, but more their "value" to the Western world. This value returned to India in the late '90s, in the form of agency (Reuters, AP, Bloomberg etc.) photography templates. The agencies fed on the fetish, building up a prejudiced and misplaced account of contemporary India.

Duff has a somewhat more forgiving take on this point.

"I think that's fine to have that conversation," he said. "I think we all have to be conscious that as we do work in other cultures, to try to not go in with preconceived notions, or stereotypes, in the work that we do. But I think to say that someone can't look at an India that is not downtown Mumbai, and can't shoot things that are interesting or quaint, is wrong."

He points to the photographer Danny Wilcox Frazier , who makes images of a rural America that would be unfamiliar to residents of New York City or Chicago.

Here's what this means for the rest of us

I imagine that the vast majority of people who read this article have uploaded images to the internet at some point. Many too consume work from favorite Instagrammers, Humans of New York , and other photographers who blur the lines between artist and journalist. Anyone with a smartphone camera has the power to turn a scuffle on a streetcorner into an important national news story — or a fake cake photo into a major lawsuit .

Cusic said, "I bet a lot of people are shocked that what he [McCurry] did isn't allowed."

As more people perform acts of photojournalism, the ethics grow fuzzier. And when a photographer as well-regarded as McCurry gets swept into a fight over his responsibilities to the truth, it only becomes harder for the rest of us to know where we stand.

Writing for PetaPixel, Allen Murabayashi says:

McCurry has an audience. Afghan Girl is so ingrained in popular memory that I've seen it used multiple times as a Halloween costume. I can't think of another photo that has reached that threshold. Castigating him for having the imperialist eye of a white male? Totally valid, but remember he's a 66 year old white male from Darby, PA who helped define the very genre he's criticized of shooting within. This is akin to criticizing Bruce Springsteen for having an 80s rock sound ...

But unless you were planning on buying a $3,000 fine art print, your opinion is unlikely to affect his reputation among his fans. And given the fashion industry's support of Terry Richardson, it's unlikely that a Photoshop bug will cause his economic ruin.

History will be the ultimate judge of McCurry's work. Perhaps his work will be viewed a level of skepticism and uncertainty that dogs photographers like Weegee, Robert Capa, Joe Rosenthal, et al. But I suspect the public will simply remember an iconic image of an Afghan girl taken in golden era of National Geographic , which was synonymous with "great photography" for a generation of Americans.

So does it matter if McCurry faked his shots? Does it make them less honest — or his early photojournalism less valid?

That's up to each of his viewers to decide for themselves.
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Tue Aug 07, 2018 3:43 pm

Bin Laden raid: ‘Situation Room’ photo airbrushed by White House

The France 24 Observers | - 05/16/2011

This now-famous photo of the US president Barack Obama and his team in the White House ‘Situation Room’ has been seen around the world. While there’s no denying the scene took place, a closer look at the image reveals it was carefully airbrushed to get a specific message across.

This photo was taken by US photographer Pete Souza on May 1 in the ultra-secure conference room from which US special military operations are planned and monitored. In it are Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Vice-President Joe Biden, Defence Secretary Robert Gates and other high-ranking U.S. government and military officials. The group is watching live footage of the raid on Osama bin Laden’s compound in Pakistan, and the atmosphere is visibly tense.

The photo was analysed with software called Tungstene, produced by French company eXo maKina. The software uses various filters to detect the different stages of alterations a photo may have undergone. In this case, the parts of the photo that have been digitally altered are highlighted in red.

A few zones clearly stand out – and a closer look at which ones they are give us a pretty good idea of the message the White House may have wanted to convey when it released this image.

- The light on and around Hillary Clinton was enhanced, while other parts of the photo were slightly darkened. This may be because Clinton’s stricken expression is what confers the most intensity to the photo.

- On the laptop computer in front of Clinton lies a document, probably a military map, which has been noticeably blurred. This tends to indicate its highly confidential character, which the White House wanted to protect. What the analysis of the photo reveals, however, is that the documents around and under the blurred map, including what appears to be a satellite photo, were in fact highlighted. In this case, the alterations seem intended to draw attention to the documents, rather than away from them. The resulting message stresses the top-secret nature of the operation, and may have been intended to convey the idea that Hillary Clinton was well on top of the military strategy.

- The left side of Obama’s strained face was also highlighted, apparently to further stress the tension of the scene.

- Finally, the numerous medals on Brigadier General Marshall B. Webb’s uniform (seated, centre) were brightened, possibly to highlight his authority as a military commander. In fact, the most high-ranking military officer in the room is Admiral Mike Mullen, the man in the beige shirt and tie standing right behind him (admittedly, however, he is not as visually impressive in this shot).

Inexplicably, the bottom part of the tie of the unidentified man standing behind Robert Gates seems to have been added onto the photo altogether. One guess could be that the tie was added to hide the man’s White House badge, which would have been close enough to read, therefore revealing his identity.

None of the elements in the photo (apart from the tie) are actually fake, but the alterations the image underwent all aim for the same effect: to enhance the impression of tension, but at the same time of efficiency and power, that the White House spin doctors hope to convey.

© 2018 Copyright France 24 – All rights reserved
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30






Notes on Faked Photos

Bin Laden’s death shows the possibilities for manipulation are endless

Columbia Journalism Review

Consider three images from the last couple of weeks:

1. President Barack Obama finishes his address announcing the killing of Osama Bin Laden and walks away from the cameras. After a brief break, he walks back down the same carpet and begins re-reading lines from the speech so that five photojournalists can snap shots of him. When distributing the images, many news organizations note that the photos of Obama were taken after the actual speech, but people often don’t notice the disclaimer. Yesterday, the White House announces that this practice of re-enactment would no longer take place.

2. In the days immediately after the announcement of the death of bin Laden, newspapers and other news organizations in different parts of the world publish a photo of what they declare is the face of the dead terrorist. It depicts him as blackened, bloodied and disfigured. It’s also a fake.

3. The White House releases an official photo showing President Obama, Vice President Joe Biden, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other key members of the administration and military in the situation room as the raid on Bin Laden’s compound takes place. It’s published the world over, including by two ultra-Orthodox Jewish newspapers in Brooklyn. Except that for religious reasons Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and Director for Counterterrorism Audrey Tomason are Photoshopped out of the image.

Three important, iconic images attached to a big story. The first was staged, the second was faked, and the third was later manipulated to remove key players from history. Taken together, they offer a powerful reminder of the challenges of determining visual authenticity in the age of Photoshop.

“There are two issues: First is the ease with which images can be manipulated; and in addition we’re seeing a sort of a slide into the consumer area where manipulation of images is becoming acceptable,” said Santiago Lyon, AP’s director of photography, echoing comments he made last month at the MIT Media Lab. “There is this sort of notion that image manipulation is somehow acceptable and I think that has very serious ramifications for the perception of the credibility of photojournalistic imagery, which has to be accurate and complete.”

While talking with Lyon, I realized I manipulate images a few times a week when I apply different filters to my Instagram photos. He also noted that today’s digital cameras often come with build-in features and filters that enhance and manipulate images with the push of a button. As for the capabilities of our home PCs, Microsoft dedicated a recent TV ad to selling the fact that you can swap out the heads of people in order to get the perfect family photo.

Photo manipulation—it’s not just for experts anymore!

Yes, the tools of image fabrication and manipulation are widely available and highly promoted. The skills to use them are easily attainable. If you are a professional designer or photographer or a dedicated amateur, the possibilities are endless, the handiwork increasingly difficult to identify.

But what about the tools and skills for detecting these manipulations before they spread online or are used by news organizations?

AFP and Tungstene

When it came to the fake photo of a dead Bin Laden, Agence France-Presse turned to Tungstene, a piece of software developed by Roger Cozien, a Paris-based criminology and photo analysis expert. (If you can read French, this story offers a detailed analysis of the faked photo. Caution: graphic images.)

Tungstene was described in a press release from AFP this week as “high-technology image interpretation software which combs through the information contained in digital images to detect potential tampering. Using a suite of filters, it can identify tell-tale discrepancies in pixels and analyse harmonisation of light and colour.”

The news agency announced it is using Tungstene to check certain photos for signs of manipulation or enhancement. As for AP, Lyon said they often turn to noted digital forensics expert Dr. Hany Farid when their internal experts require additional testing and analysis. (I contacted Reuters to see what they use, but didn’t receive a reply.)

Mladen Antonov, AFP’s photo editor-in-chief, told Stinky Journalism this week that part of the reason for implementing Tungstene was the growing use of images from social media and sources other than professional photographers.

“There are still parts of the world where journalists are not allowed to witness the events happening and we relay on hand-out images given often from the same regimes that close the doors for the independent press,” Antonov said. “In such cases all images are passing special tests.”

Lyon also said AP is increasingly handling and sourcing images from new kinds of sources, though it represents a small percentage of the photos it distributes.
Contacted in Paris, Cozien said the high end version of his analysis software takes roughly thirty minutes to process an image, and that this must be done by a trained analyst. (An extremely important image requiring the best possible evaluation can take twice that length, he said.) Roughly eight AFP employees in different parts of the world have been trained to use the software, according to Cozien.

“The software gives lots of results, but an operator has to analyze the results,” he said, comparing it to way a trained technician is required to operate an x-ray machine. “Anyone who buys the software needs to have the training and it [takes] at least one full week.”
A related product from Cozien’s company can batch process images and flag suspect files, which then need further examination. But the batches aren’t yet large enough to accommodate all of the images from a service like AFP, or the tens of thousands per day that flow through AP. At this moment in their evolution, photo analysis programs can only be used for spot checks or special situations. (On the bright side, at least that’s a more common use than what news organizations do when it comes to the widely-available plagiarism detection services.)

Human Factor

One key factor in detecting image manipulation is the human element, which is another reason why we’re unlikely to soon see wide scale use of photo analysis by news organizations.

“It’s beyond just the technical aspects of a photo,” Lyon said when explaining how his organization determines the authenticity of images sourced from citizens or those unfamiliar to AP.

Lyon listed a range of questions asked of the source of a photo when evaluating an image of unknown or undetermined origin: “Who is the photographer? Where were they? Why were they there? Do they have other images they can show us taken before and after the image we’re interested in? And what can we do to get certain questions answered about the provenance of the image that put us more at ease?”

Another reason the human factor is essential - and why asking questions of a source can often trump technical analysis - is the images themselves. Lyon said low resolution images, like those taken by cameras inside basic cell phones, are harder to analyze using software.

“The minute an image is lowered in resolution, that it falls under a certain threshold, it becomes almost impossible to run any kind of program to detect manipulation,” Lyon said. “A big image with a lot of detail can be more closely analyzed than an image of 60 or 70k…and so sometimes what happens, and this is a confusing aspect of it, on the Internet you get a lot of low res images floating around and it’s difficult to understand what’s been done to them and where they come from.”

The old cliché is that a picture is worth a thousand words. In today’s world of ubiquitous cameras and tools for photo manipulation, it seems a picture is also often worth a thousand questions.

“In the face of the ease of the scam there is a need on the part of all journalists to never assume anything and to always cross-check and verify in order to remain trusted sources of news and information,” Lyon said.

Correction of the Week

An item in the Extra Bases baseball notebook last Sunday misidentified, in some editions, the origin of the name Orcrist the Goblin Cleaver, which Mets pitcher R. A. Dickey gave one of his bats. Orcrist was not, as Dickey had said, the name of the sword used by Bilbo Baggins in the Misty Mountains in “The Hobbit”; Orcrist was the sword used by the dwarf Thorin Oakenshield in the book. (Bilbo Baggins’s sword was called Sting.) -The New York Times

[Update: the headline of this post originally read “Notes on Photo Fraud.” After some objections, we have changed it. —ed.]



© Copyright 2018 Columbia Journalism Review
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Wed Aug 08, 2018 1:32 am

Disclaimer: When working for Tick-Tock Magazine, I was occasionally sent to photograph political people. These people ranged from local to national (candidates were the worst). While doing this work, I acquired a serious distaste for all of their ilk, regardless of political bent.

Currently, Robert Mueller is leaning on Manfort for, a meeting he had with Viktor Yanukovych back in 2013

Two photos have surfaced. One depicts Mueller meeting with Yanukovych, another depicts Hillary Clinton meeting with Yanukovych. I don't know if these pictures are fake of real. But, until some kind of vetting is done (photo forensic analysis), I question their being genuine.

https://i.redd.it/ei0z6r0cmoe11.png
(if you look closely at Mueller's hair and jacket.. they weren't blended well with the background. This however, could be an honest image, altered, to call it into question - making research very necessary. Compare the two dark jackets against the background. Look for the faint white outline around Mueller's. Very sloppy PhotoShopping or, done that way intentionally.)

https://cdn2.img.sputniknews.com/images ... 469343.jpg
(This image looks like it was made on film and scanned for digital distribution. This looks unaltered or, altered professionally at the digital stage. I'm only guessing here.)

They may be real, unmodified images, I don't know, the files are much too small for a serious look.

In my experience, digital capture can be altered greatly. If enough money is available, serious Photoshop artists ($500/hr or more) can create an image from the pixel level. The forensic analysis necessary to reveal that level of talented alteration is more expensive than, the cost and time it took to create it.

Pizza Girl..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9j656_RiO0k

kd
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Wed Aug 08, 2018 3:05 pm

Green party spoiler candidate in Ohio election whose 1,100 votes could tilt outcome says his ancestors were from another planet and can't remember his own campaign website address



By David Martosko, U.s. Political Editor For Dailymail.com

Mail Online | 2018-08-08T14:38:46+0100



•Joe Manchik played spoiler Tuesday in Ohio, taking nearly enough votes in from the Democrat in a special election to trigger a statewide automatic recount
•The native of Hell, Michigan says his ancestors came from a distant planet and couldn't remember his own website address during an interview this year
•He claims marijuana is the solution to opioid addiction and says he speaks 19 languages including 'Spanglish' and 'Sheet Music'
•Calls Israel's prime minister a 'war criminal' and says every American should be required to grow hemp
•There are still thousands of absentee and provisional votes to count, nearly 5 times the Republican candidate's apparent margin of victory
•Ohio law says officials can't start counting them for 11 days

A Green Party candidate for Congress in Ohio's nail-biter contest who won nearly enough votes to throw the race into an automatic recount – gave a speech-slurred interview this year in which he couldn't remember his own website address.

Joe Manchik also says he's descended from aliens and hails from the town of Hell, Michigan.

In Tuesday's closely watched special election, 1,127 Ohioans chose him over Republican Troy Balderson and Democrat Danny O'Connor.

Balderson's apparent margin of victory was just 1,754 votes. Presuming Manchik's base would otherwise have been O'Connor supporters, the result without him would have been a hair's-width away from triggering an automatic recount.



Election officials said Tuesday night that there were still 5,048 outstanding absentee ballots to count, along with another 3,435 provisional ballots.

State law requires officials to wait 11 days before counting any of them, throwing the race into slow-motion chaos until at least August 18.

Manchik's personal Twitter account has 37 followers and is set to 'private,' meaning potential voters can't see his tweets unless he approves them in advance.

'I ♥ G A R B A G E ! ! !' his bio reads. It also promotes a sparsely populated MySpace page.

His campaign-related Twitter account has 220 followers.

On Facebook he writes that he speaks 19 languages including Spanglish, Nicaraguan Sign Language, Trinidadian English and 'Sheet Music.'

The native of Hell, Michigan says he traces his lineage back to a more far-off place.

'My distant relatives originally came to planet Earth from a planet orbiting a star in the Pleiades star cluster located in the constellation of Taurus,' Manchick writes, boasting that he was 'voted "Class Musician" by my High School graduating class.'

He did not respond to a message left Wednesday at his personal phone number, which he posted on Facebook.

Manchick has run for Congress once before, winning more than 13,000 votes in 2016.

He gave an interview in March over Google Hangouts to Green Vigilante Media, whose video had been viewed 243 times as of Wednesday morning.

Clad in a rainbow peace sign t-shirt, Manchik spoke for a half-hour about election financing, gun control, the Iraq war, the virtues of single-payer healthcare and growing hemp, the evils of fossil fuels, and the 'war criminal' Benjamin Netanyahu.

He also called the American Israel Public Affairs Committee 'an American-based terrorist organization.'

His solution to America's growing opioid epidemic? More weed.

'The use of opiates has dropped dramatically in Colorado since many people are using marijuana as a substitute.'

With his voice slurring and a bottle of tequila visible in a cabinet behind him, he declared: 'Marijuana isn't addictive at all! ... People go wacky on opiates, and I've seen it happen personally.'

Manchik also praised the Green Party for advocating that every American should be required to grow hemp.

But the most memorable Borat-style madness came at the end when the interviewer asked Manchik how viewers could donate money.

Asked for his website address, the perennial candidate was befuddled.

'Uh, no, off the top of my head I don't remember,' he laughed.

'Is it manchikforcongress.wordpress.com?' he was asked.

'Forward-slash something. Let me find it here,' he replied, fiddling with his PC and ultimately spelling it out, one letter at a time.

Manchick insisted that 'you can use a credit card, or a PayPal account' to donate, 'or a, another kind of card. What's it called? What do you call those cards?'

Debit cards, he was told.

'Yeah! That's the word I was looking for. Debit card. I don't have one of those so I can't remember what it was.'

© Associated Newspapers Ltd
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article ... bsite.html
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Thu Aug 09, 2018 3:21 pm

Exonerated in defamation suits, Ed Butowsky is out for blood

Texas adviser embroiled in Seth Rich lawsuit says false charges cost him professionally and personally

Jeff Benjamin

investmentnews.com | Aug 6, 2018 @ 3:56 pm

The dismissal last week of two lawsuits against Plano, Texas-based financial adviser Ed Butowsky has not yet taken the form of a warm and fuzzy feeling.

"Anybody who did anything negative to me as a result of the lawsuit will pay," Mr. Butowsky said Monday. "I'm going to sue the hell out of a lot of firms. I want to see these people choke on their nerves and go through the same crap I had to go through."

Last August, Mr. Butowsky, managing director of Chapwood Investments, was named in two high-profile lawsuits related to a since-retracted Fox News story about murdered Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich. The two lawsuits also named Fox News and a Fox News reporter, Malia Zimmerman. One suit was brought by Mr. Rich's parents and the other by Rod Wheeler, an investigator looking into Mr. Rich's death for his parents.

Mr. Butowsky isn't yet ready to move past the publicized allegations that he conspired with Fox News and "worked in concert under the watchful eye of the White House to concoct a story about the death of a young DNC aide."

"The story around this case had everything to do with the lawyer who filed the lawsuit," said Mr. Butowsky, referring to Doug Wigdor of the New York law firm of Wigdor, who represented Mr. Wheeler.

"Lawyers can put anything they want in a lawsuit; there's so much flexibility, it's hideous," Mr. Butowsky said. "For a year I've been known as the guy who is Trump's backer, and as someone who loves Trump and made up stories to divert attention from what really happened."

The Wigdor law firm refused to comment on the dismissal, but pointed out that it had stopped representing Mr. Wheeler on May 30. Eli J. Kay-Oliphant, an attorney at Massey & Gail who represents the Riches, did not return a call for comment.

Mr. Butowsky said he still stands by the retracted Fox News story.

"I didn't see anything wrong with [Malia Zimmerman's] article," he said. "Despite the claims, Rod Wheeler was not misquoted. The story is that Wigdor made up stuff related to Malia's story."

Mr. Butowsky said his financial planning business was negatively affected by the news reports about the lawsuit.

"We lost about a third of our business last year related to a made-up story by a greedy lawyer," he said. "I lost a lot of clients on day one. Some wouldn't even pick up the phone, and the ones that did wouldn't listen to my side of the story. And the clients that stayed with me are still skeptical."

In April, Mr. Butowsky filed a $100 million lawsuit against Charles Schwab Corp. after the custodian terminated its 12-year relationship with Chapwood, without cause, according to the lawsuit.

That lawsuit, which Mr. Butowsky said he is still pursuing, claims Schwab's "intentional wrongdoing" caused Chapwood's assets under management to decline by $45 million to less than $200 million.

The suit also claims that after being kicked off of the custodian platform, Chapwood lost "over 268 customer accounts and suffered substantial loss of income."

A Schwab spokeswoman, Mayura Hooper, wrote in an email that "Schwab has terminated its relationship with Chapwood Capital Investment under the terms of our contractual agreement, effective January 22, 2018."

"The termination was a business decision following a thorough business review of Chapwood," Ms. Hooper said. "We do not publicly discuss the details of our business reviews."

In addition to his plans for a string of lawsuits, Mr. Butowsky is preparing to go after any financial advisers who took advantage of the situation by poaching his clients.

"To those financial advisers that went after my clients, I know who they are, and I'm going to go after them and my clients," he said.

Mr. Butowsky said that in addition to the damage to his business and reputation, the defamation lawsuits took a toll on his personal life.

"I had death threats, and vandalism to my home and car," he said. "There was even a death clock on the internet counting down the days till my 20-year-old son got back to Vanderbilt, so somebody could kill him."



Copyright © 2018 Crain Communications Inc. Use of editorial content without permission is strictly prohibited. Privacy Policy and Terms & Conditions are applicable to you. All rights reserved.
http://www.investmentnews.com/article/2 ... -for-blood
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Thu Aug 09, 2018 3:23 pm

Seth Rich: judge dismisses lawsuit over Fox News story on DNC staffer's death

Associated Press

the Guardian | Thu 2 Aug 2018 18.50 EDT Last modified on Fri 3 Aug 2018 11.47 EDT

Suit brought by Seth Rich’s parents, who claim Fox turned his death into ‘political football’, dismissed for lack for detail


A lawsuit brought against Fox News by the parents of a Democratic National Committee employee killed in 2016 has been dismissed by a judge who said it lacked the detail necessary to proceed to trial.

The US district judge George Daniels said the lawsuit brought by Seth Rich’s parents required specific instances of wrongdoing by the defendants to survive.

The lawsuit claimed Fox News turned Seth’s death into a “political football” by claiming he had leaked DNC emails to Wikileaks during the presidential campaign.

The network removed the story a week after it was posted, saying it was not initially subjected to its “high degree of editorial scrutiny”.

Rich, 27, was killed in July 2016 in what Washington police believe was a random robbery attempt.

Daniels said it was understandable that Joel and Mary Rich “might feel that their grief and personal loss were taken advantage of, and that the tragic death of their son was exploited for political purposes”.

But he said a general allegation that Fox News and one of its contributors had an agreement to collaborate against the parents was not enough.

Suyash Agrawal, an attorney, said in an email that the parents were “of course, disappointed in the trial court’s decision, but they look forward to vindicating their rights on appeal”.

A message seeking comment from a Fox News spokeswoman was not immediately returned.

Daniels also dismissed a related suit by a private investigator, Rod Wheeler, saying his defamation claims against Fox News were based on five statements that cannot be proven false.

Wheeler had claimed that Fox put words in his mouth when it posted the WikiLeaks story.

The story quoted Wheeler as saying there had been contact between Rich and WikiLeaks. Wheeler alleged in his August lawsuit that the comments were false and were put in the story to discredit investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election.

The judge wrote that Wheeler and Fox News “embarked on a collective effort to support a sensational claim regarding Seth Rich’s murder”.

He said Wheeler “cannot now seek to avoid the consequences of his own complicity and coordinated assistance in perpetuating a politically motivated story not having any basis in fact”.

A message seeking comment from attorneys for Wheeler was not immediately returned.



© 2018 Guardian News and Media Limited or its affiliated companies. All rights reserved.
https://www.theguardian.com/media/2018/ ... -dismissed

NYT Story
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/08/02/nyre ... suits.html
Last edited by kinderdigi on Thu Aug 09, 2018 3:48 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: Seth Rich

Postby kinderdigi » Thu Aug 09, 2018 3:26 pm

Judge Dismisses Suits Against Fox News Over Seth Rich Story

August 3, 20184:10 PM ET David Folkenflik Twitter

NPR.org | August 3, 2018


A federal judge has dismissed a pair of lawsuits against the Fox News Channel over its coverage in May 2017 of the killing of a young Democratic Party aide named Seth Rich that had to be retracted just days later.

Judge George B. Daniels, of the Southern District of New York, ruled that the lawsuits, one for defamation, the other for intentional infliction of emotional distress, each failed to state a valid claim against Fox. The cases were also dismissed against the other defendants: Malia Zimmerman, the reporter on the story, and Ed Butowsky, a Texas investment manager and former unpaid Fox News commentator who had been involved behind the scenes with Fox's look into Rich's death.

In the first suit, Rod Wheeler, a former paid Fox News commentator and former homicide detective who had acted as a private investigator for the Rich family, alleged that the Fox News reporter who wrote the story created quotations out of thin air and attributed them to him to propel her reporting.

Rich was killed in July 2016 in an early-morning shooting in Washington, D.C., that the Metropolitan Police Department believes was probably the result of an armed robbery that spiraled out of control. In May 2017, Fox reported that Rich had been linked by a federal law enforcement official and by Wheeler to the leak of thousands of Democratic Party emails to WikiLeaks and suggested his death might be related to the release of those emails.

Butowsky had orchestrated Wheeler's hiring by the Riches, according to the accounts of the Riches, Wheeler and Butowsky. By Butowsky's account to NPR and on Twitter, Butowsky was motivated by the desire to help mourning parents find out the truth behind their son's death.

Wheeler offered a different version of events. In his defamation lawsuit, filed in August 2017, Wheeler alleged Fox's story had been part of a concerted effort to prove that Rich had been linked to the leak of Democratic Party emails during the 2016 presidential campaign.

The effort was driven, he alleged, by Butowsky and Fox, who Wheeler asserted wanted to deflect public attention from mounting concern about the Trump administration's ties to the Russian government. U.S. intelligence officials have publicly stated their conclusion that the Russians commissioned the hacking to disrupt the U.S. elections and to aid then-candidate Donald Trump.

In taped conversations referenced in the lawsuit, Zimmerman appeared to acknowledge that Wheeler had not made the remarks he was quoted as saying by Zimmerman in her story — and that he had challenged the quotes on the very day the Fox story first ran. And Butowsky encouraged him to stand by the Fox story he objected to, according to materials referenced in Wheeler's suit, saying in taped remarks: "One day you're going to win an award for having said those things you didn't say."

As the judge noted, however, Wheeler did tell a reporter for Fox 5 — the local Washington, D.C., sister station to Fox News — on tape that it was "confirmed" that his sources had told him about information linking Rich to the WikiLeaks email dump. And some of Butowsky's tweets jabbing at Wheeler amount to opinion or rhetorical questions, not clearly defamatory claims, Daniels wrote.

"In this case, Plaintiff and Defendants embarked on a collective effort to support a sensational claim regarding Seth Rich's murder," Daniels wrote in his decision. "Plaintiff cannot now seek to avoid the consequences of his own complicity and coordinated assistance in perpetuating a politically motivated story not having any basis in fact."

In the second lawsuit, filed in March, Rich's parents, Joel and Mary Rich, sued Fox, Zimmerman and Butowsky, alleging the intentional infliction of emotional distress. In their suit, the Riches cited Butowsky's role in tracking them down to offer to pay for a private detective, and for proposing Wheeler. They also cited Butowsky's communications with Zimmerman and others at Fox about the story. Additionally, their suit alleged Butowsky repeatedly asserted ties between Seth Rich and the emails posted by WikiLeaks, despite the firm denials of Joel Rich.

In his ruling in the Rich family's case, Daniels said that Zimmerman's statements in the Fox News article about Seth Rich's ties to the email leaks were false. And the judge also wrote that Zimmerman's claims were false when she told Rich's parents of an FBI report that she alleged showed Rich had shared the emails with WikiLeaks.

But citing legal precedent, Daniels ruled their claims in that and other instances "do not rise to the level of extreme and outrageous conduct."

An attorney for the Riches, Eli Kay-Oliphant, wrote in a statement to NPR that they would appeal: "Joel and Mary Rich are, of course, disappointed in the trial court's decision, but they look forward to vindicating their rights on appeal."

Wheeler's former law firm had withdrawn from the case. Wheeler could not be immediately reached for comment. Fox News, and Zimmerman through a Fox News spokeswoman, declined to comment. Butowsky did not respond to a request for comment.

Editor's note: In June, Ed Butowsky sued NPR media correspondent David Folkenflik, NPR and several NPR editors for $57 million in a defamation of character claim over its coverage of the Seth Rich story. NPR has publicly stood behind its reporting. That lawsuit has yet to be heard in court.



© 2018 NPR
https://www.npr.org/2018/08/03/63527292 ... rich-story
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