A Navy story.

• Author: Conniff, Ruth
• Position: Media jingoism - Nov. '97 US-Iraq conflict - Column - Brief Article

We shoot for Newsweek," Admiral Kendell Pease, director of the U.S. Navy's public-affairs office, told a group of reporters recently. During the recent stand-off between the U.S. military and Iraq, dramatic photos of U.S. ships, planes, and missiles in the Persian Gulf, taken by Navy sailors, appeared in Newsweek, Time, and on the front pages of major newspapers around the country. Pease showed off his collage of dozens of Navy press clips, pasted onto poster board, at an informal session with journalists in his office at the Pentagon.

"You know those two-page horizontal pictures Newsweek likes to run, with a lot of white space at the top, so there's room for a big headline?" Pease said. "We take those."

Readers might not know it though, because Newsweek and other publications sometimes fail to acknowledge their military sources.

Take the two-page spread in Newsweek's November 24 issue. Under the headline Saddam's Dark Threat, a shadowy picture of Navy bombers, with steam rising all around them, conveyed the ominous feeling on board the aircraft carrier U.S.S. George Washington, as it headed for the Gulf. The credit line attributed the photo to "Joseph Hendricks--A.P." But Hendricks doesn't work for A.P. He's a petty officer third class in the Navy, says Lieutenant Christopher Madden, acting director of the Navy News photo division.

It's Madden's job to market Navy photos, free of charge, to the A.P., Reuters, and other wire services, as digital images. News organizations that subscribe to the wires can download the pictures--which are clearly marked "Navy News." (The Washington Post ran a cropped version of the same steamy bomber shot that appeared in Newsweek, but credited the Navy.)

Madden says that "about 90 percent of the time," the newspapers and magazines that pick up Navy photos don't give proper credit.

"It's a double-edged sword. On the one hand, we're getting huge success in the use of our imagery," says Madden. "On the other hand, we'd like to see `Navy photo,' so the organization gets credit." In the case of Newsweek, he says, "We were just glad to see the photographer's name on there, because often you'll only see the wire service credited."

"It's hard for the photographers" when they remain anonymous, Madden says, since they are trying to assemble professional portfolios. But neither he nor his boss, Admiral Pease, is making a big stink about the credit issue. After all, from a public-relations standpoint, the Navy is doing a...