Photography as a Weapon

By Errol Morris
You have your fear, which might become reality; and then you have Godzilla, who is reality.
— from the movie “Godzilla: King of the Monsters”

As almost everyone knows by now, various major daily newspaper published, on July 10, a photograph of four Iranian missiles streaking heavenward; then Little Green Footballs (significantly, a blog and not a daily newspaper) provided evidence that the photograph had been faked. Later, many of those same papers published a Whitman’s sampler of retractions and apologies. For me it raised a series of questions about images.[1] Do they provide illustration of a text or an idea of evidence of some underlying reality or both? And if they are evidence, don’t we have to know that the evidence is reliable, that it can be trusted? Full article and comments on the New York Times Blog. Very interesting and you can comment.
Above image - Boing Boing’s contest entry. (boingboing.net, submitted by THEBLUEONE)