Free Iraqi

I was not living before the 9th of April and now I am, so let me speak!

Friday, February 04, 2005

Our media


was looking into Al Sabah newspaper today when I saw a picture that looked familiar to me. The picture was put along with an article about the reconstructions in Iraq. After one or two seconds I recognized it. It was actually one that I took about a year ago near the hospital where I work! I posted that picture together with few other ones about a year ago at Iraq the Model.This annoyed me for two reasons; one is that they didn't mention where they got it from which gives a bad example of journalism. The other thing is that the reporter seems to be too lazy to get out and took a picture of Iraqis working and decided just to copy one that was taken months ago by someone else.Now the newspaper didn't put the picture claiming that it's taken from anything recently rebuilt but rather just put it there because it generally shows Iraqis working and it was taken after the war, but it still shows that they're lazy and they're using someone else's effort without even mentioning it.You can see a picture that I took for the newspaper's yesterday edition and you can see that it's the picture I took before. They still don't have it on line but if they put it I'll link to it.I don't know what I should do and I thought I'd better I ask my reader's opinion, as they're have more experience in such things as a result of dealing with free press for a long time while it's still a very fresh practice for us. Should I send a mail to them asking them to do something about it? Or should I just leave it and look at it as a credit? I appreciate any response but I still don't like the newspaper attitude.Update: Thank you for all your valuable advises. I checked my ego and I saw that I don't need to push this more but I'm just annoyed with the laziness of the journalist that wrote that article. So I wrote a message to the newspaper telling them that I'm an avid reader of their newspaper and that it was me who took a picture that they used without contacting me, and that for the sake of the credibility of the newspaper I thought I should point this out and maybe in the future they would pay more attention.They don't have a mail address except for those who want to advertise in their newspaper but if anyone is interested in contacting them, you can write a message on their message board here. The first space is for the name, the second is for the mail address and the third large one is for the message. After you post click on the button on the right lower corner of the last space. They didn't respond to my letter but maybe if they get more messages they would know that there are many people who are watching and that they may not like what they are doing. I really hope it would help them improve their performance as it is a good newspaper in general.