The Common Ills: Is the State Dept violating social media guidelines or did AP put their name on someone else's work?

Tuesday, November 11, 2014

Is the State Dept violating social media guidelines or did AP put their name on someone else's work?

Politico and Michael Crowley offer another meaningless ramble on Iraq -- they're never sure where they stand from one moment to the next which leaves no foundation to their so-called reports.

But what may be most interesting about the article is a photo caption.

A friend at the State Dept caught it and called me this morning.

A photo of US Secretary of State John Kerry, the State Dept's Brett McGurk and Robert Stephen Beecroft illustrates the article. That raises questions.

But the one the friend pointed out was giving AP credit for the photo.

Is it an AP photo?

Maybe it is.

Doesn't look like one.

More importantly the State Dept's been cautioned repeatedly about how they may and may not use AP photos in social media and Brett McGurk has made this photo the background for his Twitter account. If Politico's credit is right, then Brett's violating the social media guidelines meant to protect the government from charges of copyright infringement.

Brett may not be violating anything.

AP has a really bad track record of grabbing photos other people take -- including government photos which are not copyrighted and are public domain -- and slapping their name on it.

That may have taken place here -- and may be why no individual photographer is credited for a very large photo Politico chooses to run.

And why did they choose to run it?

Beecroft is no longer the US Ambassador to Iraq.

Politico does know that, right?

Stuart E. Jones is the US Ambassador to Iraq.

Beecroft is now the Ambassador to Egypt.

If you haven't seen the photo, it's the one that was at Third a few months back:

Sunday, August 31, 2014

Well Hello Johnny

Secretary of Match Making John Kerry attempts to pair up Robert S. Beecroft and Brett McGurk as those around the three chant, "Kiss! Kiss! Kiss!"

I find it really interesting that a Google search shows it as an AP photo starting 24 hours ago. That photo's been around for months.

The following community sites -- plus Antiwar.com and The Diane Rehm Show -- updated:

Like Maria Said Paz

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Ruth's Report

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