To give just one illustration, a variation on the veracity problem occurred during the last presidential election:  In the midst of the primaries, then-Senator Hillary Clinton spoke about her harrowing experience in 1996.  She and her daughter had ducked fire on the airport tarmac in Tuzla during the war in Bosnia.  Film footage taken of her arrival at the airport, as well as an Associated Press photograph, subsequently surfaced.[3]  A formal greeting committee of Bosnians appeared to meet First Lady Clinton.  Nobody seemed in danger.  Nobody acted as if fearful of sniper fire.  The images presented a documented truth about the candidate’s experience at the airport.  That documentation contradicted her verbal description of the event.

There are a few instances when it is likely that the news media itself will turn its gaze on the business of creating images of political campaigns.  Occasionally a national news outlet will feature the work of its own political campaign photographers.  On the day of the most recent New Hampshire presidential primary the New York Times gave over one of its web pages to a slide show highlighting the campaign photojournalism of Jim Wilson, [4] but this is rare.   A particular candidates’ campaign, a specific election, may prompt one of the Times’ slide shows, but a review of the work of a photographer’s campaign photos is infrequent.[5]