Goddamn Another Update [2006-3-31 5PM PDT by Earl]: Smith has
released a statement. "...was a sacrifice that I was willing to make to do the right thing."
Update [2006-3-31 4PM PDT by Earl]: This is the Mega Update. It's been confirmed that Peter Smith owned the photos. It makes his release from further work unethical and possibly grounds for a lawsuit (Just my opinion). See the end of diary for more. (And thanks to Bouwerie Boy for the link.)
END UPDATES
I just read this over at
America Blog and I'm so pissed I can hardly fucking type.
Antonin. Fucking. Scalia. got that photographer who took his "Take it up the ass in church!" photo FIRED. (Also here.)
A fucking Supreme Court justice got a
photographer fired for taking and then allowing a photo to be published.
One of the people charged with the protection of our constitution had a guy fired for exercising his FREEDOM OF THE PRESS.
The motherfucker who once had a U.S. marshall order two reporters to erase recordings of him speaking, had said to the photographer, "Don't publish that!" after he snapped the shot.[Ed: Scalia insists that he did not have the marshall make the two erase the recordings. I believe that. The atmosphere of suppression he creates at public events is probably what incited the marshall to do so.]
He apparently fucking meant it. (And can I just say: Antonin Scalia, kiss my fucking ass.)
A freelance photographer has been fired by the Archdiocese of Boston's newspaper for releasing a picture of U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia making a controversial gesture in the Cathedral of the Holy Cross on Sunday.
Peter Smith, who had freelanced for The Pilot newspaper for a decade, lost the job yesterday after the Herald ran his photo on its front page. Smith said he has no regrets about releasing it.
"I did the right thing. I did the ethical thing," said Smith, 51, an assistant photojournalism professor at Boston University.
Damn fucking straight you did.
Smith wouldn't give up the photo earlier this week but chose to release it when he learned Scalia said his gesture had been incorrectly characterized by the Herald. Smith, who was standing in front of the judge, said the Herald "got the story right."
Smith said the Pilot had an obligation at that point to bring some clarity to it."
"I felt that same obligation," Smith said. "I had to say what I knew and come forward with it."
The weekly Catholic newspaper made a "journalistic decision" not to run or release the photo, said Archdiocese spokesman Terry Donilon. "Because he breached that trust with the editor, we will no longer engage his services as a freelance photographer," Donilon said.
"It's nothing personal," added Pilot editor Antonio Enrique. "I need to try and find people I can trust."
I know some of you might say that Scalia didn't get him fired, but I will argue until my teeth start on fire that he did. Even if he did not call and ask that he get fired, which he very well may have done, they did it as his behest. They know what he would have wanted. There is no question about this. Why else would they do it? Because they couldn't trust him? Bullshit. [Ed: Add to that that Scalia almost certainly asked the editor and the Cardinal to not publish the photo, leading to the "jounalistic decision" not to do so. That pressure is an action with a direct consequence being the firing, lending more weight to the argument that this is Scalia's responsibility.]
That fucking editor. How fucking insulting. "Nothing personal"? How personal it is that he lost his job is his say, you shit. You wanna be able to "trust" him? Maybe your fucking readers would like to be able to trust that your paper is made with an ounce of integrity. Is Freedom of the Press a little too fucking quaint for you, you shit? A Supreme Court justice made an obscene gesture inside a fucking church. One of your photographers caught it. And You Don't Fucking Run It? And you fire him? Fuck you, you son of a fucking bitch. Fuck you. We don't trust you. You shit. How fucking insulting to someone who has worked for that paper for ten fucking years.
Antonin Scalia, you have obviously not taken Freedom of the Press to heart, you turd-faced little fuckjob.
Write, call, fax, email. That Fucking Paper.
The Pilot
2121 Commonwealth Avenue
Brighton, MA 02135-3193
Phone: 617-746-5889
FAX: Editorial 617-783-2684 | Business/Advertising: 617-783-2876
Letters to the editor: letters@bostonpilot.org
Story ideas, press releases or events: editorial@bostonpilot.org
The publisher of the paper: Cardinal Sean P. O'Malley - Archbishop of Boston, 617-254-0100
Email: info@yourcatholicvoice.org
In the meantime, you can give some love to Peter Smith, Assistant Professor of Photojournalism at Boston University. Scratch that I found his email, but he doesn't need to be deluged. (Or...?)
Let me close by saying, Antoinin Scalia, you scum-sucking, ass-on-a-face, unworthy to be an Earthling fucknut dickbrained shit-eating ass, Freedom of the Press is, according to some, the most important of our cherished freedoms here in America, you stupid fuck. It is the means by which the view that is vital to the functioning of a true and good democracy is kept transparent.
It also allows me to call a shitsack like you a shitsack. You shitsack.
As a justice on our nation's highest court, I find it a little difficult to understand your hatred of that freedom. I find it really difficult. What the fuck is wrong with you?
You fuck.
Update [One more time by Earl]: Someone just pointed out in the comments that the title " Antonin Scalia Gets Photographer Fired" is wrong. I changed it, taking out the "gets." You're right--but I explain my feelings on why I think this is Scalia's responsibility in the diary.
Update [2006-3-31 4PM PDT by Earl]: This is the Mega Update. It's been confirmed that Peter Smith owned the photos. It makes his release from further work improper and unethical. See the end of diary for more. (And thanks to Bouwerie Boy for the link.)
And he released it to defend the honor of the reporter slammed by Scalia's lying letter. Think of that. He exposed a lie and protected someone lied about...and was punished by a Catholic newspaper. And the liar was rewarded with their loyalty. Fucking Beautiful.
After seeing the incident characterized inaccurately, Smith decided Wednesday evening to provide the picture to The Herald.
"I kind of felt like it was their story and their reporter who had been undermined," Smith says. At the paper's advice, he also made the picture available through Polaris Images.
...
As for The Pilot, Smith says he notified his editors about his decision to provide the picture to The Herald and knew it would cost him future assignments. [ED: That does not justify the firing. At all.] Enrique, the editor of The Pilot, is quoted in The Herald today saying, "It's nothing personal.... I need to try and find people I can trust."
[Ed: "Nothing personal, but he's not trustworthy." What a fuck.]
Though he was working for The Pilot when he took the Scalia picture, Smith was not under contract and retains the copyrights to the photos he takes.