Bad Play for a Great Photo   

Freelancer appalled by use of her Palestinian children shot

Courtney Kealy knew she had a powerful photo as soon as she raised her camera. It was the 14th anniversary of the militant Palestinian group Hamas, and Kealy, an American freelance photojournalist, had talked her way into the Ain El Helweh refugee camp in Lebanon to cover a small parade and anniversary celebration. Bored with the clichéd shots of Hamas members burning the American and Israeli flags, Kealy slipped away from the main action and began photographing Palestinian children around the camp.

As she knelt down to photograph a small boy, a group of hooded teenagers who had dressed in suicide bomber costumes for the parade gathered around the shy 3-year-old. They gently slipped one of their pseudo-bomb packs around his waist and proudly posed him for a photo. Kealy snapped away.

"At this point, I didn't say a word because I was horrified by what was happening," Kealy says. "I remember that picture being very important because you got the action of what was happening."

Within days of the parade in early December, the photo was on the cover of the New York Post and published in newspapers and magazines around the world. It raised discussions about the role of children in war and helped people get a sense of the worsening tensions over suicide bombers in the Middle East. "I basically ended the year feeling like I'd done something worthwhile," Kealy says.

Less than three months later the photo would come back to haunt her – in the form of an advertisement in the Sunday New York Times.

Getty Images, the up-and-coming photo service that distributes Kealy's work, sold the photo to the American Jewish Committee, which used it as the centerpiece for an ad. Michael Sargent, Getty's vice president, immediately realized the problem when he opened the editorial section of the Sunday paper.

"I looked at my Sunday New York Times and said 'What the hell is this?' " says Sargent. "I was basically appalled."

The quarter-page ad--titled "No one is born hating...But too many are taught how!"--gave examples from news reports about how children in Saudi Arabia, Pakistan and Syria are taught the "vilest hatred" of Jews and Christians. It concluded: "Take another look at the picture. Which of the masked suicide bombers is the father, and what kind of future is he planning for his son?"

The line under the photo said the image was courtesy of Kealy and Getty Images. The ad made it seem as if Kealy and the photo agency had taken sides in the conflict between Arabs and Jews, Sargent says.

Getty's New York-based editors called Kealy in Lebanon to warn her about the ad and check on her safety. "She was as upset as we were, and understandably so," says Sargent.

In Beirut, Kealy thought she might have to flee the country if word got out about her involvement in an anti-Hamas ad in the United States' most respected newspaper. The Columbia University-trained journalist had relocated from New York City to Lebanon nearly four years ago because the country was almost devoid of Western journalists after the kidnappings of former Associated Press Beirut Bureau Chief Terry Anderson and other Americans in the mid-1980s.

As a tall, blond American woman working alone, Kealy did not need any more help standing out. "When this happened, I thought I may have to leave. I thought I may be kicked out of the country," says Kealy, 34. "This was a huge, huge mistake, and it wasn't mine."

Back in New York, Kealy's editors learned the American Jewish Committee went through proper channels to license the photo and download it from Getty's Web site. But the Getty account executive who sold the photo said he was not aware how it would be used, says Sargent. Getty has referred the matter to its legal department and is considering legal action against the American Jewish Committee.

American Jewish Committee spokesman Kenneth Bandler says he did nothing wrong. The ad was part of a series the nonprofit group runs regularly in the Times as part of its advocacy efforts. Bandler, who put the ad together, first spotted Kealy's photo in the New York Post and contacted Getty Images for permission to use it. He says he specifically asked Getty Images how to credit the photo in the ad and was told to use the name of the photographer.

It wasn't until the day after the ad ran that Getty editors called Bandler to tell him the ad may have put Kealy in danger. "We were shocked and very, very concerned about her," Bandler says. "We still are."

The American Jewish Committee ran the ad again later that week--minus the photo credit--in New York Jewish Week, the largest Jewish newspaper in the U.S. A copy of the ad also remained on the group's Web site (www.ajc.org) with the photo credit removed. Of course, it was too late for the American Jewish Committee to remove Kealy's name from the New York Times ad, says Bandler.

At the Times, the ad cleared the paper's standard review process for opinion ads and did not raise any alarms. "It met all of our requirements," says Toby Usnik, a Times spokesman.

The misstep has been a learning experience for Getty Images, a photo agency founded in 1995 by investment bankers Jonathan Klein and Mark Getty, the grandson of oil baron J. Paul Getty. The company's fledgling news division has become the hot breaking news photo service of the moment with its stylized coverage of September 11 and with a team of aggressive freelancers and correspondents covering the unrest in the Middle East.

Kealy's problems are also a reminder that foreign journalists face a growing danger while covering the conflict in the Middle East, says Joel Campagna, program coordinator for the Middle East and North Africa at the Committee to Protect Journalists, a New York-based nonprofit group. "We've seen a real threat for people trying to cover the conflict," Campagna says, adding that often the photographers, camerapersons and sound technicians are most at risk.

Though there have been multiple cases of violence against American journalists in Israel in recent months, things have been quiet in Kealy's area of Lebanon. "We have not documented any specific threats against Western reporters," Campagna says.

That doesn't console Kealy. She continues working and living in Beirut, hoping none of her contacts believes she has taken sides in the escalating hostilities in the Middle East. "Obviously, I'm here alone," says Kealy, lowering her voice as she talked about the situation so no one would overhear.