Yahoo News picks up on the Obama/Osama meme...
Following CNN's Monday night broadcast of Situation Room with Wolf Blitzer in which the phrase "Where's Obama" was placed over a photo of Osama Bin Laden and his second-in-command Ayman Al-Zawahiri, Yahoo! News photos page features a photo of Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL) listening to testimony in front of the Federal Advisory Board on Radiation and Worker Health in December 2006 in Naperville, Ill. with the cutline "Osama bin Laden and Al-Qaida."
Posted by Corey Anderson at January 3, 2007 03:36 PM
Comments]
~Brian Nelson here from Yahoo! to clarify what happened. Many photo slideshows on Yahoo! News are built automatically based on keywords in the wire service-supplied captions of photos. In this case, the initial photo was on a page listing a number of slideshows, including a slideshow about Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida. The photo of Sen. Barack Obama appeared in this slideshow because the photo caption included the term "Osama bin Laden" in describing the recent CNN incident. Because it was the most recent photo in the slideshow, it was used to illustrate the bin Laden slideshow on the main photos page.
We have removed the photo from the slideshow and modified the automated script so that future photos of Sen. Obama will not appear in the al-Qaida slideshow.
Posted by: BrianNelson at January 3, 2007 07:20 PM
This action against Senator Obama is no mistake by either CNN or Yahoo. Look for more hateful this to happen. I'm baby boomer and African American I would never believe what I saw in the 50's would be happening today. I pray that this generation is better then racism. My daughter is in Afghan fighting in the war zone and I wonder sometimes after reading this racism why she's fighting for a country that doesn't care about her or me. My brother died in Vietnam fighting for the United States of America. This is a great way to show our young soldiers and those who lost their lives who just happen to be of color just what our elected officials and the media that of their sacrifice
Posted by: Jackie at January 3, 2007 08:04 PM
Great catch. Obamarama is encouraging folks to contact Yahoo! News and request an apology. This sort of thing shouldn't simply go unaddressed. Here's the link: tinyurl.com
Posted by: Jeremy at January 3, 2007 10:39 PM
I hope that if you were the one responsible for this, BrianNelson, you are fired. If it is not you, then whoever is responsible should be fired. This is disgusting and should never be allowed to happen again.
Posted by: Paula at January 4, 2007 11:53 AM
Nice try, Brian.
But you seriously mean for people to believe that the photos for Top Stories just get automagically inserted, and no one looks, no one was responsible?
Sorry. I've worked in journalism, I've been responsible and accountable (you can look those words up online to find their meanings) for the headlines that were lame or worse, the juxtaposition of things that should never have been, and so forth.
There is someone--at least one person and probably more--who saw this in advance and let it go by. It's possible that someone really did blow it--was rushed, didn't catch it. THAT does happen.
But this has happened repeatedly to Obama, mostly recently. Let's just say that the claim of accident and coincidence is worn thin to the point of being see-through. So, from me to you, here's fair warning. Yahoo's on terminal probation. Last chance.
Do this again, and Yahoo will get the same treatment and attention I give to such biased and irrelevant media outlets as Fox, ABC and the Enquirer. It's the only place to hit the irresponsible in the media--right in the income stream; no eyeballs for you...
(And no, I'm not on the Obama bandwagon, if you incline to discount this on that assumption.)
Posted by: ogre at January 4, 2007 11:55 AM
Joke's on the Republicans here. Obama isn't going to get nominated. It'll be Gore and he'll win in a landslide. Anyone with more than a pedstrian understanding of the history of primary politics would know that. Gore's going to run, and he'll win big. It's typical of the modern GOP though, they're fighting the wrong smear campaign in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Posted by: Phil at January 4, 2007 11:56 AM
Please tell me how you plan to undo the damage you have already done? If you can't, I'd like to make a couple of suggestions. You can start with a public apology, on air, during Prime Time. Next, follow it up with an expose that cites valuable and significant research showing how mistakes like this one can sway viewers opinions in a biased and deceitful way.
Many of us out here have had it with the media. Try to get back in our good graces, would you, please?
Posted by: Nancy at January 4, 2007 11:57 AM
It's obvious that Brian is telling the truth, although it's equally obvious that Yahoo! isn't doing themselves any favors here by trying to explain how it happened. Suffice to say that this is further blowback from CNN's mislabeling and the subsequent outrage which caused the AP to send out a wire photo of Obama with Osama's name in the caption. If you want to complain to anyone, complain to them.
Posted by: neil at January 4, 2007 11:59 AM
A new low for CNN. Sound like FOX (PER- HATE)
Posted by: kristi at January 4, 2007 12:05 PM
Brain's excuse is bullshit.
Posted by: lestatdelc at January 4, 2007 12:07 PM
save it for someone who believes your bullcrap, brian.
Posted by: seer at January 4, 2007 12:08 PM
Brian, please point me to Google caches of Yahoo! running slideshows of Bush with "Adolf Hitler" as the caption, since many critics of Bush have used the comparison. It's certain your "scripts" would have so erred.
Posted by: seer at January 4, 2007 12:10 PM
As a (1) huge fan of Obama and (2) computer scientist who knows how these kinds of scripts work, I do believe Brian's explanation of how the picture became miscaptioned. It's an innocent mistake, not some puerile attempt at humor or a smear.
Obama will be a very credible presidential candidate and in my mind has greater potential to set the USA and the world on a course away from self-destruction than any other candidate, Gore included.
Posted by: ri at January 4, 2007 12:17 PM
Ho-Ho-Ho, it was just our little joke, see! Don't you people have any sense of humor?
Posted by: Yayhoo News at January 4, 2007 12:26 PM
ogre: "Sorry. I've worked in journalism, I've been responsible and accountable ... There is someone--at least one person and probably more--who saw this in advance and let it go by."
You've worked in journalism, but on how many mostly automated large scale internet news sites have you worked? This is a relatively new phenomenon.
Journalists are just at one end of the funnel. In between journalists, news desks, and news wires are a whole assortment of automated publishing processes driven by programmed rules and filters. If an actual human being was the gatekeeper for every page of a news site you see online, they'd never be up to date.
Embarrassing and unfortunate? Yes. Intentional or someone's idea of a joke? No. Never attribute to malice what can be adequately explained by stupidity - in this case, machine intelligence driven stupidity.
Posted by: l.m.orchard at January 4, 2007 12:39 PM
Great energy on this site! Channel it in the right direction: click on my name and lodge a complaint with Yahoo! News!
Posted by: Jeremy at January 4, 2007 12:52 PM
Oh, my God, people! Come on! It's embarrassing, but as orchard points out, this is an automated news service which pulls its data from third-party sources. Get over it already! Ever visit Google News? The same thing happens: photos don't match up with the headlines and stories. It's not some evil Yahoo conspiracy.
Posted by: Chris at January 4, 2007 01:04 PM
Just like foley magically became a Democrat on Fox news and the Yahoo?
Posted by: Noname at January 4, 2007 01:33 PM
"The photo of Sen. Barack Obama appeared in this slideshow because the photo caption included the term "Osama bin Laden" in describing the recent CNN incident."
Right. Wipe Bush's jiz off your chin long enough to say that with a straight face.
You guys are a bunch of crooks and liars.
Posted by: Makesmeralph at January 4, 2007 02:47 PM
These vulgar responses to the Nr. Nelson form Yahoo cause me to ask myself once again: when did the left become the natural home of the ignorant blowhards?
You people reacting that way are truly disgusting. What you're doing, what you represent, is the actual horrifying trend in our politics.
Stubborn, purposeful, ignorant viciousness: it's always such a great development in a political wing.
Mr. Nelson, if you are a liberal yourself - take note of all this.
Posted by: Paul S. at January 4, 2007 02:54 PM
Another CSy type here, and yeah, what Brian says makes perfect sense. Automating from a third party script means an error from the third party will get propagated around.
Posted by: Cybit at January 4, 2007 03:17 PM
There's no conspiracy on Yahoo!'s part here. In fact, I give them kudos for finding this post and both acting and responding so quickly.
When you are dealing with the quantity of information that Yahoo! does, and the instant-response nature of the internet, things are necessary put together by scripts. It's not that hard to understand. Y! News updates EVERY MINUTE, not once per day like a traditional newspaper -- it has to be automated to do that. What makes Y! nice is that it's always had a large human component with people who try to stay on top of things. They can't review everything in advance, but they can react quickly to stuff like this.
You could hypothesize that the person who created the original caption (which Yahoo!'s scripts simply reposted) did it deliberately. It's possible. But even that seems like a stretch. Obama's a Senator and you can find his picture associated with all kinds of topics. BB*Spot, a humor website, likes to compile funny computer-generated mismatches that they call BBloopers -- including goofs very similar to this one.
Posted by: Drew Thaler at January 4, 2007 03:17 PM
As if on cue:
"Wipe Bush's jiz off your chin long enough..."
The sexual insult is a booming sidelight in today's "intelligent" "left." You see it all over.
What kind of ugliness deep inside allows a person to say that; especially when what what he's proclaiming is almost undoubtedly false? Does the degree of insult grow with the degree of nonsense? Is it some kind of subconscious corrective?
I find it impossible to be on the same side as someone like you, Cybit.
Posted by: Paul S. at January 4, 2007 04:56 PM
Whoa! NOT Cybit. Makesmeralph. That's who makes, um, ralph. Sorry, Cybit.
Posted by: Paul S. at January 4, 2007 04:57 PM
BRAVO, Brian..."it's just a little mix up, and nobody should be offended".
WELL I SAY THAT MY PALS AND I ARE GONNA ECONOMICALLY TARGET YAHOO'S ADVERTISERS IN A BOYCOTT THAT LASTS FIVE YEARS over this damned racist BS you've been pulling. If you don't understand what happens to your job when large percentages of the market stop patronizing your advertisers, and said advertisers Know that it was YOUR RACIST REPORTING that sent us in that direction, then YOU, sir, are about to be given a LESSON in Free Market Economics. See you at the unemployment office, sweetcheeks.
Posted by: chris at January 4, 2007 05:52 PM
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