The Sirius Arts Centre and Marco Vernaschi (who threatens to sue duckrabbit again)
Written by duckrabbitToday someone sent me an email with a link to a Facebook page. It seems that the photographer Marco Vernaschi has secured himself a residency at The Sirius Arts Centre, in Cork. There was a picture of Marco lecturing an audience. According to Sirius they ‘are honored to have Marco with us in Cobh’.
In the interest of balance I made this comment:
Aha. That would be the Marco who persuaded families to dig up at least four children in Uganda, so he could take photos of their mutilated children, right? The one who thinks it is alright to ask parents to have their children undress and lie down on a bed to take full frontal nude pictures of their mutilated genitals so he can save them? Great
Pretty soon afterwards the page with the comment was taken down. It seems that Marco’s ethical conduct are beyond discussion as far as they are concerned.
A few hours later, Marco sent duckrabbit this email:
‘Benjamin,
I know you called the Director of the Sirius Arts Center and you posted a hetefull comment on Iophotoworks’ Facebook page. You’re bulling people who are working with me now so this time time I’ll go seriously go legal.
You’ll be contacted by my lawyers through the next weeks.
Marco
I was bit surprised by Marco’s email. Until about ten minutes ago, I had no idea who the Director of Sirius Arts Centre is, let lone spoken with her. And why does Marco need more than one lawyer? Maybe it takes more than one to explain the laws of libel to him?
For your information the Director of Sirius Arts Centre is Peggy Sue Amison. Since we have never spoken she will already be aware from reading Marco’s email above that at times he can be delusional.
She should also know that many photographers are struggling right now. Photographers who have conducted themselves throughout their career’s with integrity and respect for those they have photographed. Photographers who think it’s unacceptable to paint Africa black and white; to stage nihilistic visions of the continent and feed racist and ignorant stereotypes. Photographers who it would have been a real honor for Sirius to host.
Below are a number of articles written by people who have lived and worked in different parts of the developing world. They strip bare the ethical and journalistic integrity of Marco’s work; which is why the Pulitzer Centre put out an apology for publishing some of Marco’s photos. The same ones he wants to sue duckrabbit for mentioning.
Lets not ‘honor’ Vernaschi’s work, but yes give him a platform so we can debate it’s merits, and let that debate be informed.
Author — duckrabbit
duckrabbit is a production company formed by radio producer/journalist Benjamin Chesterton and photographer David White. We specialize in digital storytelling.
Discussion (34 Comments)
Hi Benjamin, good to talk with you again.
Just to clarify that I was the one who called the Sirius Arts Centre today only to hear from them if they had a transcription or video from the meeting.
I would like to know in what grounds the Centre decided to invite Marco.
Cheers
André
I have to say Andre … I don’t really care … He’s welcome to talk.
Duckrabbit, if the absurd Vernaschi is dumb enough to resort to legal action then he’s going to have to deal with the deeply uncomfortable reality of appalled photographers and photo editors queuing up to act as ‘expert witnesses’ and offering their thoughts on the validity of his working methods. And, while times may be hard for photographers, I suspect most of us would dig deep to provide the financial resources necessary to defend any action.
I don’t agree with much of what’s on this blog, but you’re to be congratulated for shining a spotlight on Vernaschi and the Pulitzer Center.
http://www.photographers.ie/2010/10/marco-vernaschi-talk/
Vernaschi: “Reality is multifaceted and each time you point a camera and open your shutter, as a witness you’re choosing how and what to show. This is definitely a partial witnessing, a subjective process”.
As an Irish photographer I can assure you that he is not welcome here and I have made that point in an email to the centre.
As a small photographic community we rely on our reputation when working abroad and I for one would not want anything do do with any photographer who works in the manner of Marco, or anyone else who manipulates a situation for their own good or acts in a manner which I personally believe is despicable..
Journalism is a profession on the brink and if we can’t at least attempt to have some form of moral core or a small piece of decency when dealing with our subjects then we will be a profession scorned, and destroyed.
As much as I hate the concept of mob rule, ‘journalists’ like this must be made feel uncomfortable and unwelcome within the community at large. Any organization who deals wth people like this must be made aware of what they are affiliating themselves with and who they are representing. One bad egg can spoil the cake.
My 2c
J
I don’t think feeding racist and ignorant stereotypes of any country or continent should be of concern for photojournalists.
If you start thinking like this as a journalist, you cannot work anymore.
Anyway, all of this issue seemed from the start to be more of a confrontation of points of views on representation of Africa. And clearly some feels on some kind of moral high ground and think being vindictive bullies is ok because they are defending a good cause.
Far from me the idea of defending someone who stages a scene to get a photo but I am sorry JayGannon, mob rule is despicable whatever the circumstances.
If anything, it says a lot about people preaching on ethics and behaving like yobs with other photographers.
The whole Duckrabbit vs Vernashi thing really did put me off reading this blog a few months ago, a blog which I otherwise found quite good.
Now I can see it’s back on the table and that Benjamin is as agressive and smug as ever, so I definitely won’t come back. Just because libel is a difficult thing to prove doesn’t mean what you are doing is ok.
Good day to you and peace on earth to men of good will.
‘I don’t think feeding racist and ignorant stereotypes of any country or continent should be of concern for photojournalists.
If you start thinking like this as a journalist, you cannot work anymore.’
Really Joe? As journalists we often thought about this at the BBC. You’re the first person I’ve known to suggest that a thinking journalist is a bad thing.
And lets be clear the reason Vernaschi is featured on the blog is because he sent me a legal threat. No legal threat, no blog post.
Well, when something happens or a situation develops, it would be pretty bad as a journalist not to report on it because it’s showing something negative about some place and that some ignorant people somewhere might draw some ignorant conclusions. Thinking in these terms you’ll automatically censor yourself down the line. If you start censoring yourself for these reasons, then the perpetrators have won, and indirectly you are their accomplice because you failed in your duty as a journalist to report something you witnessed.
Of course I know when it comes to children things are different, but I was reminded recently of the value of bearing witness as a journalist and photographer: A photo of child soldiers in Somalia made the front page of the New York Times and was later used by a democrat congressman as proof that the American help to the Somali transitional federal government might be in violation of many acts and laws protecting children and ratified by the American government. A day later the story was taken to the UN security council and the issues surrounding what sanctions to take against generals for the STFG who are known to be using child soldiers were debated. All this to say that censoring yourself from taking the pictures of these children because these pictures might somehow perpetuate a certain image of ‘Africans’ does not serve any good cause in the long term. In any case a journalist should not think in terms of ‘Africans’, but in terms of individual issues so the way ‘Africans’ are ‘represented’ should not concern them when it comes to whether to report on something or not. Each country has its own issues and problems as well as its successes. All should be reported on without any agenda. Of course as an editor at large you might want to balance the overall output, but by wanting to balance to much you may end up being biased, the way the BBC reported on the Gaza war is a good study case of that.
Anyway, this is off the point I was trying to make about you and marco vernashi. I end up being suspicious of people so called ethical and sensitive approach to reporting when they prove to be quite ruthless in their own backyard.
Joe, where is it written you shouldn’t report this stuff?
Digging up children, asking others to undress for a photo, is creating a story, not reporting one.
It is read that he paid the family for them to exhume the body. Is that right that this allegation has been made and has it been refuted?
He paid for this to happen in the name of journalism? an image? fair compensation for the trouble? – that is the allegation I read on lightstalkers….
No. From his own account he gave money to the elder (who negotiated the exhumation) after the exhumation. In my opinion it’s the least that he could do.
@Ben,
I was not talking about the specific case of Vernashi and what he did to get his photo, I was talking about self censoring which was alluded to when speaking earlier of photojournalists feeding racist stereotypes. Sorry if it was unclear. Sometimes I am not as articulate as I wish and it gets confusing.
@iamnotasuperstarphotographer, taking the risk of sounding terribly patronising, avoid relaying allegations you read on blogs, if you are really bothered about this, speak in person to the people, go on site, then make your case to the interested parties instead of the world wide web.
Anyway I am out of this, I won’t take part in the lynching.
All the best for the blog, continue the good work and hopefully things can be settled out of courts.
@Joe, any editorial code enforces a practice of self-censorship amongst journalists.
Joe I do find your use of the word ‘lynching’ is a bit disturbing, given the history of the word. You seem to be arguing that a journalists actions should be beyond question? That’s why journalism as a profession is not taken very seriously by the public.
Here’s another thought. I would fight for your right to defend Vernaschi, but he wants to threaten people with legal action for expressing an opinion. Who has a problem with democracy?
Ben, I clearly didn’t read the same code of editorial practise as you did, but I agree that your guts feeling should be a good barometer.
I also agree that maybe lynching is a bit of a strong word. I take it back. I am sorry if I disturbed you or anyone else reading this, it was not my intention.
I have no problem with people expressing opinions, but blogging is a way of press, so same investigative work and journalistic ethics should be applied before publishing on the net, in my opinion.
Some of the allegations that were relayed here a few months ago weren’t properly verified, and if I remember well some happened to be inexact. If you are going to damage someone’s reputation and reveal some serious wrong doing it is advisable to apply the journalistic principles you seem to hold so high. Don’t report on something if you haven’t personally spoken to the protagonists, better even, travelled to the place and made your own investigation.
Long live democracy!
Joe. Perhaps you can specifically point me to the allegations I made, because I’m not aware of any? Everything I wrote was based on Vernaschi’s own account of events and my personal correspondence with him.
By the way I think I’m entitled to have an opinion on my own blog. I even let you have one too.
You are right it’s your blog. And many thanks for letting me expressing myself. You clearly dislike when people disagree with you on your blog. Fair enough, I won’t bother you much longer. In any case, I don’t feel very comfortable being seen as the person somehow agreeing with Vernashi’s method, because that couldn’t be more removed from what I feel towards his work in Uganda. But the whole blog rage just made me think of the witch scene in the Monthy Python Holy Grail, and mob trials generally just bother me no matter how bad the accused has done. Democracy can sometimes be a loose concept.
So, to reply to your question the allegations were in relation with Anne Holmes blog, involving the testimony of some policeman. If you want more details I can email you but for obvious reasons I won’t publicly discuss it.
All the best.
Joe, I just asked you to actually back up the things you write. Its a shame you didn’t make it clear that you were talking about someone unrelated to duckrabbit when you wrote:
‘Some of the allegations that were relayed here a few months ago weren’t properly verified, and if I remember well some happened to be inexact.’
Who’s misleading who?
I can feel this is becoming a bit acrimonious.
I don’t want to mislead anyone.
Let’s make it clear here. In the post I am referring to, you invited people to read Anne Holmes blog so they could forge themselves a better opinion of Vernashi’s alleged unethical behaviour. What was on that blog happened to be inconclusive, or unreliable so as to the exact circumstances of the exchange of money, as the policeman admitted later he wasn’t on site when the digging happened. I can see now that you have acknowledge that in your reply to iamasuperstarphotographer in this thread. To speak frankly I don’t know what happened in Uganda except what Mr. Vernashi has admitted, which was more than journalistically questionable in my opinion. I think we all agree on that.
Salam
Not acrimonious Joe. It’s good to question these things … it’s only my opinion afterall. That’s what a duckrabbit is, something people can see from different perspectives.
You see a mob. I see people independently calling into question actions that undermine the credibility of journalism. For me that’s a good thing.
And as I keep saying, if Marco hadn’t written to me with his threats to sue, there would have been no blog post.
Joe maybe you should reread my 2 posts on the issue before making allegations about me or my journalistic practices. I published what the Police Chief (not just “some policeman”) sent to me without making any inferences about it. It’s his opinion of how things went down in contrast to Marco’s. I had been in communication with him for at least a week and he did not wish to say anything on the matter until he read Marco’s post on the Pulitzer, at which point he felt compelled to send me an official statement that I published in full. It was clear he wanted the public to have another perspective and I felt it was fair for people to hear from someone in Uganda who was aware of this case directly through legal channels long before any of us got wind of it. He was a person of authority on the matter and on the cultural mores of his own country of Uganda.
“If you are going to damage someone’s reputation and reveal some serious wrong doing it is advisable to apply the journalistic principles you seem to hold so high.” Right back at you, Joe. Unlike you, I did speak with the protagonists. I was in direct contact with Vernaschi, the Pulitzer people, the Chief of Police in Uganda, a Ugandan journalist who interviewed the mother of Babirye, Andre Liohn, two Ugandan journalists who were following the story, a specialist on Africa with extensive knowledge on human sacrifice, and the young British woman who was working with RACHO in Uganda. If you want to lob accusations at me, next time do it on my own blog when the story is actually unfolding so a proper discussion can ensue. Instead of addressing the real errors of judgement in this story, you are trying to discredit those who had the guts to speak out against it. It’s a bit like psyops tactics used to divert attention from the elephant in the room, and what you’re doing is effectively towing the line Pulitzer and Vernaschi used; nothing we didn’t already hear and address six months ago.
I am not going to comment publicly on Vernaschi’s appearance at St. John’s College, as I feel my opinion has sufficiently been made clear on this affair.
Anne, I am not making any accusations. Only making the point that the responsibilities of journalists when it comes to writing blogs should not be different to any other forms of reporting, especially standards of sourcing, FAIRNESS, cross checking of facts, verification and overall accuracy. The chief of police was not on the site, so some of his testimony was just unreliable. In the midst of the storm raged rightly or wrongly at Mr. Vernashi I felt that disseminating information that could evidently influence people’s perception of the events with a testimony that had no value in terms of finding out what happened that night was just wrong. Besides the police forces have been quite ineffective in the past from preventing these killings, so anything that they would have to say should have been verified on the ground by any conscientious journalist.
And for your information I did have the guts to speak out on this subject but I don’t do it on a blog. Don’t accuse me of discrediting you or anyone, poor journalism discredits itself. And that Mr. Vernashi knows too well now.
Good day to you
I’m sure you have a real name “Joe.” Having the guts to speak out publicly requires using it and publishing or broadcasting your views.
All the best.
No, having the guts is not to speak on a blog under a real or a false name to people who are only third parties. I made my views clear to the people involved under my real name. There are too many third parties in this business. Let’s not forget the real elephant in the room here, the killings and the inability of the authorities in charge to prevent them.
Sorry Ben, I feel like I have hijacked your post. I’ll shut up now. Best.
I am reminded of the NGO’s who say, please don’t shine a light on the way we piss away money, because we are set up to do good.
Joe, I asked a question and duckrabbit cleared that up.
People know more than me we able to address my question. I gave the source and asked for clarification. Got it. I do not see a problem. I am not speaking form any position of authority on this issue. All I have are feelings and questions.
The story: The killings and the inability of the authorities in charge to prevent them. What good did it do to have that story hijacked by the ethics of a photographer? Who is responsible? Could the story of “the killings and the inability of the authorities in charge to prevent them.” be told without his actions?
All good questions that serve as a body of information for others who may face similar ethical problems when pursuing an important story. Well done for having the debate.
We all have the right to fight our positions, explain it, debate it and stay with it. It is your right and it is better duckrabbit blog shines a light where others do not dare to for the sake of progress.
@Ben: So true. But I guess if you were going to reveal some malfunctioning about an NGO, consequences would be so important that you would double check every assertions, if you were a news organisation you would probably have a meeting with senior editors and the legal department. What bothered me is that it’s so easy not to have to do that when you are dealing with an individual. In the end it doesn’t serve any good because the Pulitzer Centre and Vernashi can so easily point the finger back and avoid taking responsabilities.
@iamnotasupestarphotographer, Duckrabbit shines a light on a lot of interesting things. He often dares, but I’d say in the Vernaschi case the consensus was rather in his favour.
@Joe … ‘In the end it doesn’t serve any good because the Pulitzer Centre and Vernashi can so easily point the finger back and avoid taking responsabilities.’
Check your facts. Pulitzer centre publicly apologized. Pulled the two photos I asked them to, put in place a proper set of editorial guidelines and hired an extra member of staff to make sure they never fund a project like this again.
None of that would have happened without bloggers like Anne.
…
“Despite the controversy over the images, Sawyer defended his decision to publish the story and keep it online. He argued the project was bigger than these controversial images.
“The internet is both blessing and curse, and must be approached as such,” reflected Sawyer. He noted how the discussion on the photos took place on the web.
“The blog debates were useful feedback for us and I want to thank them for that,” he said.
But Sawyer also noted that the blogs were also full of half truths and personal attacks against the photojournalist.
…
Sawyer concluded by emphasising that the child sacrifice story fit exactly with the aims of the Pulitzer Center – to shed light on issues that would otherwise go unreported.”
http://www.reportr.net/2010/04/30/lessons-from-pulitzer-centers-uganda-child-sacrifice-controversy/
Half truths happen when the journalist creates the situation they document and that becomes the story instead. Not just the bloggers who are guilty of that (if they are). Debate might start with half truths from all sides but responsible scrutiny and reasoned discussions will end up with progressive evolution.
Hooray for that I say!
@ Joe.
I had for long ago decided to leave this case behind but I have to make some comments about Joe´s interpretation about Vernaschi´s case.
I understand that you does not agree with what Marco did, very well, but you are somehow raising questions that have for long ago been answered. I´m afraid that people learning about this case now, can be mislead to believe that the case was not properly handled.
1: I like to remind you that I have personally been in Uganda, and that I met in person everyone involved in this case.
2: You accuse duckrabbit of being planing to damage someone´s reputation: No one involved in the clarification of this case had the intention to damage anyone´s reputation. I suggest you to see the very first post on lightstalkers regarding this case. There I explain what I found in Uganda in details and I explain that the first contacted regarding this case was the Pulitzer center’s managing director Ms Nathalie Applewhite. In my email to her I explained in details the facts I discovered and invited her to take the best internal measures they could find regarding this case. (The email sent to Ms Nathalie has the exactly same text posted on Lightstalkers) The Pulitzer Center never sent me any answer, what they did was to forward my e-mail to Marco and from there, he started to send me emails and phone calls threatening me with legal actions. Marco´s threats and the Pulitzer´s irresponsibility regarding the seriousness of this case was the reason that made me decide to make the story public on Ligthstalkers. Benjamin was the first to contact me and I imagine that he also contacted both Marco and the Pulitzer´s administration at the same time to verify all the information he was getting from all of us.
3: Regarding Moses Binoga´s statement. Sure Mr. Binoga were not present at the exhumation, that would make the entire story different in two different ways. He would be a illegal collaborator and therefore also commenting a crime. Or he would be there doing his normal work and Marco would be doing something legal following the police´s work regarding the case. What happened was a third way. Marco knowing that he would never receive the legal authorization and that Mr. Binoga was not a criminal decided to do the exhumation in the only way possible. Illegally.
4: You say that the police is inefficient in preventing the cases of Human Sacrifice to happen. Marco first description of Human Sacrifice started as following: Child sacrifice in Uganda is a rampant phenomenon that has embedded itself within traditional customs: After the case came out he changed it to: Child sacrifice in Uganda is a phenomenon that has embedded itself within traditional customs. And I also have to remind you that the criminals involved in the 4 cases of exhumation that Marco did were in JAIL at the time Marco exhumed the bodies. His pictures would make no difference in any of the cases. On the contrary. The way he did the exhumation, if would one day be necessary, might for sure have destroyed evidences.
5: About Anne Holmes – Anne did a exemplar journalistic work about this case. As she explained before, she did a profound research about this case before she came out with her opinion about it. I also have to remind you that she only removed Marco´s interview from her page after this research. If I remember well, she used two weeks on it.
Considering that you don´t agree with Marco´s methods and seeing that you are interested in the case, I would suggest you to go over the posts from 6 months ago to see by your self that the questions you are raising now, have been answered before.
Benjamin cannot be more right saying that the Sirius Arts Centre decision to promote a lecture with Marco is an offense with serious photographers. I´m not from the so called “western world and I´m personally very tired about how photographers and to be honest the entire western media portraits everything out of the western ring.
I just imagine if someone, one day, decide to exhume illegally a body of an western young soldier mutilated by a war that have been killing innocent and misinformed young people for 10 years now. I would like to see the public´s reaction against someone trying to get “visual evidence” about the lies the western politicians are telling the public for 10 years by showing illegally exhumed, mutilated bodies of soldiers. Our profession is very much done. I was for the first time in Perpignan this year and I was shocked observing the profile of the public there. The majority was, young, white male, rich, western photographers talking (in black and white) about the rest of the world. It is not strange that more and more are getting violent against journalists working in Africa and other areas in the world.
Here Marco says he still working for the Pulizer Centre http://www.wefree.it/node/2956
It is really sad the the Centre treated this case with such irresponsibility.
@ Joe, do you think the Pulitzer Centre has ever invested time and money to go to Uganda to verify the case? It seams that they never did. They should be the most interested part in doing it.
“Sawyer concluded by emphasising that the child sacrifice story fit exactly with the aims of the Pulitzer Center – to shed light on issues that would otherwise go unreported.”
http://www.reportr.net/2010/04/30/lessons-from-pulitzer-centers-uganda-child-sacrifice-controversy/
@Joe
They also point out that “One of the lessons of the Uganda story, said Sawyer was that the Center was short on staff for editorial supervision and should have devoted far more attention to the child sacrifice project.”
In other words, documenting child sacrifice is a very important thing to do. Documenting it well and responsibly would obviously “shed light on issues that would otherwise go unreported”. I agree wholeheartedly with that. It is a vital social function and the
Pulitzer had every right to have the story of child sacrifice reported but it is such a shame that the Pulitzer had to deal with the trouble brought into them by the photojournalist. Imagine if the Pulitzer had the story without the self created problems that came with it – it would have so much more power.
They are saying that being short staffed meant they could not monitor the project as closely as they would like.
“The blog debates were useful feedback for us and I want to thank them for that,” he said. I would like to thank them too!