Über die Autorin bzw. den Autor

Kiku Adatto is a Scholar in Residence at Harvard University's Humanities Center. Her writings on culture, politics, and the media have appeared in many publications, including the New York Times, the New Republicand the Huffington Post.

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"Picture Perfect is perfect. The thoroughness and patience and precision of the research dumbfound me! Kiku Adatto has again provided us with a valuable tool for the continuing assessment of our media."--Walter Cronkite

"Tired of being manipulated by politicians and image consultants? Then read Kiku Adatto's brilliant, revealing book. Picture Perfect is pure consumer protection for good citizens."--Larry J. Sabato, author of A More Perfect Constitution

"Images are more important to our lives, both private and public, than ever before. Kiku Adatto's narrative, rich with evocative details, helps us understand how this has happened, and what it means for our future."--Robert D. Putnam, author of Bowling Alone

"Kiku Adatto's Picture Perfect is a book every journalist must read if we are to begin to truly understand ourselves and our world--and if we are to avoid the deadly mistake of Othello, who uncritically believed what he saw."--Bill Kovach, Project for Excellence in Journalism

"With rare insight and acuity, Kiku Adatto dispels the mystifications of a media age in which vital information is obscured by the opportunism of the photo op, and reality is too often the victim of the manipulations of Photoshop. This is an empowering book."--Homi K. Bhabha, author of The Location of Culture

"Picture Perfect is our most elegant, comprehensive, and current study of media and politics. Masterfully weaving together accounts of photographs, movies, television news, and the Internet, Adatto has written a profound reflection on the meaning of images in our public and private lives."--Jeffrey Abramson, author of We, the Jury

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Picture Perfect

Princeton University Press

Introduction

On Thursday, May 1, 2003, President George W. Bush soared above the Pacific in a Navy Viking jet. The Navy pilot then made a dramatic tail-hook landing on the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, the USS Abraham Lincoln, just returning from the Iraq War. Bush emerged from the plane in a flight suit and helmet, strode across the deck, shook hands, posed for pictures with members of the crew, and then watched a dramatic flyover by F-18 fighter jets. Later, in suit and tie, with a big banner proclaiming "Mission Accomplished" in the background, Bush stood before the assembled crew and dignitaries and declared the end to major combat operations in Iraq.

It was a perfect set of pictures, and the media was quick to take note of the fact. One after another, television newscasts described Bush's tail-hook landing as "historic," and compared it to heroic landings in blockbuster Hollywood movies like Top Gun, Air Force One, and Independence Day. Reporters noted that Bush took control of the Viking jet for a third of the journey, and they interviewed the self-effacing pilot about the awesome responsibility of having the president of the United States as his copilot. To heighten the excitement, CNN had one of their correspondents ride in another F-18 fighter jet with her cameraperson to be an "eye in the cockpit" to describe the sights and sensations of taking off and landing.

Yet, even as television reporters praised, even reveled, in the pictures, they were also quick to call attention to the stagecraft. So similar was the language of the commentators from the three major cable news networks that they sounded like theater critics comparing notes. "Who dreamt this up?" asked Keith Olbermann, host of MSNBC's show Countdown. "Who orchestrated this?" "Probably somebody from their communication shop.... Whoever it was, it was brilliant," observed Kirk Hanlin on FOX News Network, "There's an election less than a year and a half away and having him standing on the deck of one of the mightiest warships on the planet is definitely a good image." It's the "ultimate photo opportunity" declared CNN anchor Aaron Brown. Chris Matthews of MSNBC saw the event as Bush's direct challenge to the Democrats: "Do you really think you've got a guy in your casting studio ... who can match what I did today?" The New York Times joined the chorus, declaring in a subsequent front-page story: "George W. Bush's 'Top Gun' landing on the deck of the carrier Abraham Lincoln will be remembered as one of the most audacious moments of presidential theater in American history."

Television and newspaper reporters spent a lot of time taking their readers backstage and behind the scenes. A controversy raged for months afterward in the media about who put up the sign that read "Mission Accomplished." Was it just a group of enthusiastic sailors aboard the ship, or was it Bush's savvy media team who were embedded aboard the ship days before the event? At first, Bush claimed that he did not have advance men that "ingenious," and it was all the sailors' idea. Later news reports noted that the Bush team (headed by a top former television news producer) had indeed produced and arranged for the sign to be placed strategically before the cameras. It also came out that the Abraham Lincoln was supposed to be hundreds of miles out at sea for the big event, but the ship had made faster progress than anticipated and was only thirty miles from the California shore. To simulate the feel of a ship far out at sea, the massive nuclear-powered aircraft carrier was turned around so as not to reveal the coast of San Diego in the background.

Some eight months after the "Mission Accomplished" pictures aired on television, Joseph Darby, a sergeant and army reservist stationed in Iraq, was hoping to take home some of his snapshots of the Babylon Palace, Al Hillah, and other places he'd been. But the sun and heat of Iraq had not been kind to his photos. To his dismay, the pictures had begun to curl and peel. So Darby thought of a great solution for his melting photos: Why not borrow some digital photos of the places he wanted to remember? One evening, with his laptop at the ready, Darby was volunteering at a satellite cybercafe on the military base. He spotted a fellow reservist, Spec. Charles Graner, and asked him if he could borrow a digital picture file of the sights and scenes of their Iraq tour. Graner was happy to oblige and handed Darby a couple of CDs. Darby downloaded the picture files onto his laptop computer and gave them back to Graner. An evening or two later, Darby sat down to look at the pictures. The first CD contained the pictures Darby had asked for. The second CD contained photos of a very different sort. An image appeared of a pyramid of naked Iraqi prisoners with American guards posing for the camera.

This was the first of a series of photographs of prisoner abuse by American soldiers at Abu Ghraib prison outside Baghdad, once an infamous place of torture and death under the dictatorship of Saddam Hussein. The Abu Ghraib photographs were troubling not only for the abuse they depicted but also for their style. The photographs, taken by U.S. servicemen and women with digital cameras and shared via e-mail, conveyed the happy normalcy of snapshots from a family vacation: "Look at me and see what a great time I'm having." One of the first images to come up was of Charles Graner and a female prison guard, Pvt. Lynndie England, standing arm in arm, smiling broadly, and giving a thumbs-up to the camera as they stand behind a pyramid of naked Iraqis. In another photograph, Lynndie England poses holding a leash attached to a naked prisoner's neck. The mugging for the camera continued as England poses for the camera, cigarette dangling from her mouth, while pointing to the naked bodies of Iraqi prisoners lined up against a wall. Other photos showed prisoners being beaten or made to assume sexually explicit and humiliating poses. One of the starkest pictures (which later became an icon of the Abu Ghraib prison abuse) showed an Iraqi prisoner with a black pointed hood over his face, draped in a black cloth, and standing on a box with electrical wires attached to his body.

Viewing picture after picture on his computer screen, Joseph Darby was disgusted. It was not that he considered himself a Boy Scout. He knew that in the heat of the moment during the war he had exceeded the proper use of force. He had kept secrets in the past for his fellow soldiers and did not consider himself the kind of person who would "rat" on others. But these pictures "crossed the line," and Darby felt he had no choice but to do what was "morally right." He burned a copy of the CD and turned it in to the authorities. The pictures prompted an investigation by the U.S. military in January of 2004 that later pronounced the acts of the guards at Abu Ghraib prison as "sadistic, blatant, and wanton criminal abuses."

The Abu Ghraib photographs became public when 60 Minutes II broke the story on April 28, 2004, and the photographs were soon disseminated worldwide via the Internet, newspapers, magazines, and on television. Arab television stations showed them repeatedly as evidence of the hypocrisy and brutality of America's effort to bring democracy to Iraq. What started as the sharing of private picture files among friends was soon magnified on...