Snopes.com is my favorite place to send people who send me spurious crap over the wire. Now my J-School officemate Ken Light is featured at snopes, as principal photographer in the recent flap surrounding a supposed image of Kerry speaking with Jane Fonda at a 1970 peace rally.
Update: Strata Lucida sends this damning evidence of Kerry and Fonda working together. Let’s see “the Dems” try and explain this one! Hah! Seriously though, I wasn’t getting why it was supposed to be “damning” to have Kerry connected to Fonda, but this page explains why “Hanoi Jane” is hated by many veterans, even considered treasonous by some. What I find interesting about this is the fact that many hawks claimed that people protesting the Iraq war were as good as traitors too. Some things never change.
Last night Ken was interviewed on MSNBC talking about the growing problem of image doctoring. The Guardian covers the story here.
Update 2: Ken Light writes today:
..check out this web site…the right now says that Jane Fonda was removed from my image..not added…
Amazing what lengths people will go to when reality needs to be distorted to support a distorted position.
Heh, s’funny, I read the Guardian piece in the three minutes before my train to London pulled in last Wednesday. Never suspected Ken would be a colleague of yours.
Ken needs to write a thank you to the graphic artist that created the image combining Kerry and Fonda. Ken wouldn’t have made as much money off of licensing the original Kerry photograph if the composite image (parody-satire) hadn’t been done. He should thank the person that created it, otherwise Light would still be a nobody teaching at UC Berkley.
Ken is a phenomenally accomplished photographer — far from being a nobody. In fact it is his history of accomplishments that results in him being a photography prof at an esteemed university. In what universe is he a nobody?
Do you really think Light would rather have his work doctored without permission just because it results in a few more royalties than to have his copyright and his work’s integrity respected?
You’re off your gourd, Rich.