For those who don't know me, I've been at Daily Kos for ages, lurking in the pre-Scoop days and finally registering (barefoot, in the snow) before the 2004 election. But my real home is BAGnewsNotes, the web's premier site for spin dissection of media and political photographs. I'm deputy publisher. I have a badge.
During the holiday break, we're breaking out the The Best of the Bag Decade from our incredibly rich archive. BOBD is our end of the year, end of the decade look at some of the best BAGnews posts and analysis. Here is segment two for your minimal break from pie. I'll post segment three tomorrow, but click for a preview.
The Best of BAGNews, Iraq War Version
1.
The Iraq War has been (and still is) a frequent subject on BAGnews and, frankly, such a topic of government and media spin that I find it impossible to highlight the best posts in a single entry. This is particularly true when I read through the sharp analytic comments posted by our readership over the years. To encapsulate the coverage, I’ve restricted myself to the year and a half following the 2004 election, a time when the Bag moved to consistent posting of photographs instead of political cartoons. It was also a time in which the war propaganda machine played at full power to a usually compliant media.
We begin with the 2005 White House photo release of a 2003 image showing staged strategery of the Bush Administration's "war planning" in Pizza II (shown in the intro), the pro-war iconography of the Iraq "Marlboro Man", and propaganda aspects of Michael Yon’s photo of a US soldier and a dying Iraqi child.
2., 3.
The aftermath of the election saw further examples of the government and media spin on Abu Ghraib, noted in BAG’s The Most Obscene Pictures Taken at Abu Ghraib and the "framing" of low-level soldiers in Lynndie Comes Up Short.
4., 5.
The post-US election time period also marked the first photograph by Alan Chin posted on the site (which brought about a fascinating discussion of the embed process) and the posting of the equally uncomfortable imagery of War As Child's Play.
6., 7.
BAG posts covered the capture and trial of Saddam Hussein and the media (read Murdoch's) need to denigrate and glamorize the Iraqi dictator in Bottom Drawer Journalism and Portrait of Evil vs. Evil Portrait. 8., 9.
10., 11.
BAG readers took a sharp look at the military industrial complex’s visual stake with Unleashing Hell, Ironically and Flare for the Dramatic.
12., 13.
Of course, BAG caught the unintentional tragicomedy of the Bush Administration’s ready at the helm images in I know These Guys Love Uniforms, But... and Bush's Rainbow.
14., 15.
Finally, we end this era of BAG Iraq War coverage with the haunting and emotional World Press Photo contest award winner Above the Hold, a photo taken in a time when the American public rarely saw coffins returning from the war they supported.
16.
--Karen Hull
For more BAG posts on the Iraq war (before and after the 2004 election), click on the following links:
Uniform Response
Bush's Crusade
Your House Is My House
Who's Watching Who?
A Word About BAGnewsNotes:
BAGnews is undergoing a major re-design and re-launch scheduled for the early part of 2010. We're working with an incredible team of the hottest designers and developers and we know the results will blow the blogosphere away. Read more about it here in A Whole New Bag.
For more on the origins of BAGnewsNotes, here's the first installment of the Best of the Bag Decade and visual teaser.
For why we ALL need to increase our visual IQ, here's Michael Shaw's take on the subject.
You know you're getting spun, BAG knows it, too. Expanding visual literacy since 2001.
UPDATE: If you're so inclined, please feel free to comment here or at BAGnews. Our community is the brightest in the blogosphere and we rarely serve pie. You can register or simply post through any number of social networking sign-ons.
(Photo credits: 1. Eric Draper, White House/AP, 2. Luis Sinco/LA Times, 3. Michael Yon/Time.com, 4. Unattributed. September 2003, 5. Paul Buck/European Pressphoto Agency, 6. Alan Chin/The New York Times, 7. Cris Bouroncle/AFP, 8. CNN.com, 9. AFP/IST/File, 10. The Council on American-Islamic Relations, 11. Marine Corps Combat Camera Management and Imagery Management Unit/United States Department of Defense, 12. Pablo Martinez Monsivais/AP, 13. Gerald Herbert/AP, 14. Todd Heisler/The Rocky Mountain News/Polaris, worldpressphoto.com.)