R
At 12:42 PM 11/21/2002 -0500, you wrote:
>[Thie pic is at
><http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/showcase/chi-021113bush,0,1033562.photo>.]
>
>Chicago Tribune - November 21, 2002
>
>A picture tells a thousand words on a front page
>Don Wycliff
>
>Sometimes the readers say it best.
>
>"I am neither a Democrat or Republican but--I am an American and therefore
>am very offended and so very disappointed by your lack of discretion and
>sensitivity in choosing to print that picture."
>
>That message, sent by Olivia Pfenning of Glenview to the public editor's
>e-mailbox, was one of about three dozen communications that came from
>readers after the publication of "that picture" last Thursday across five
>columns at the top of Page 1. Only one of those communications was
>complimentary of the photo's use.
>
>The picture in question was of President Bush and United Nations Secretary
>General Kofi Annan. They were seated in chairs in front of a fireplace at
>the White House, just before their Nov. 13 meeting on UN arms inspections
>in Iraq.
>
>But instead of the usual sober, serious pose, Bush was caught giving a
>thumbs-up signal and wearing a broad grin, part of an overall facial
>expression like that of a preadolescent boy when the teacher has just sat
>down on a whoopee cushion.
>
>"We don't understand why you would publish such a terribly unflattering
>photograph of our president on your front page," North Siders Doug Snyder
>and Elizabeth Conway wrote.
>
>"We're not always partisan, but we're always patriotic, and after all the
>effort that's been put into the UN efforts recently, we would think that
>your paper could pick from an abundance of potential photo-opportunities
>for a quality picture of Kofi Annan and President Bush. It's laughable to
>think that you would not [sic] publish this photograph without underlying
>motives. It was wrong, and when you have a sweeping ability to do what is
>right with the photographic eye yet you do differently, it's a real
>turnoff. So why did you?"
>
>Good question--and one to be taken very seriously. Because the tone of
>Snyder, Conway, Pfenning and the rest was not the usual strident
>hyperpartisanship of those pro-Bush zealots who live to hate Clinton and
>find evidence of media bias. The zealots probably relished "that picture"
>because it confirmed their conviction that the media are against them.
>
>These correspondents were people who expected us to be fair and objective
>and were heartsick that, in their view, we had failed. Like Pfenning, they
>were "so very disappointed" in us. Like one man who called and left a
>terse phone message, they found the photograph "mean-spirited," "nasty"
>and "well below the Tribune's standards."
>
>So why did we do it?
>
>Bill Parker, the associate managing editor for photography, said this
>photo actually gave him less anguish than many others he has recommended.
>Bush, he said, was a "president on a roll" and the photo reflected that.
>
>The president's Homeland Security bill had just been passed by the House
>of Representatives--a headline to that effect was just below the picture.
>So was another headline announcing Saddam Hussein's capitulation to a UN
>demand to allow weapons inspectors back into Iraq--a resolution that Bush
>had sought and won.
>
>And all of this, Parker noted, had happened barely a week after mid-term
>elections in which the president, defying historical odds, had seen his
>party add to its numbers and become the majority in both houses of Congress.
>
>In such circumstances, Parker's logic went, Bush was entitled to be
>gleeful and the disputed picture--obtained from the syndicate Agence
>France-Presse--captured his happiness. For what it's worth, a spokesman at
>AFP's Washington office said none of the five major American papers that
>the syndicate monitors for its "play reports" used this photo of Bush.
>(Those papers are USA Today, The New York Times, The Washington Post, The
>Baltimore Sun and the Los Angeles Times. The last two of those are Tribune
>Publishing Co. newspapers.)
>
>Three foreign newspapers--one in Montreal, one in Nigeria and one in
>Dubai--did use the photo, the spokesman said.
>
>Ultimately, of course, this is not a matter of numbers, but of judgment
>and taste. And this is an instance, I believe, in which the readers have
>it right. Try as I may to read "that picture" as Parker did, my gut tells
>me it amounted to a Page 1 editorial in which George W. Bush was being
>labeled an idiot and a clown, unsuited to the presidency.
>
>There may be a place for that in the newspaper, but it's not Page 1.
>