Philippines Photo Critique

Photo 1 can be found here: One killed, 6 injured in Philippines squatters riot.
Photo 2 can be found here: China Sends Second Boat to Standoff with Philippines
Photo 3 can be found here: Philippines urges North Korea to be a 'better neighbor'
Photo 4 can be found here: Suspect held in Philippines bombings

The original plan was to find a video to critique, but I was unable to find a video in English or even one with subtitles.  I resorted to photos.  I found it interesting that photos do not have captions on Philippine News.

Photo 1:

This photo went with the story, "One killed, 6 injured in Philippines squatters riot."  To give a little background, a squatter, according to Google Dictionary, is "a person who unlawfully occupies an uninhabited building or unused land."  This photo is demonstrating the police armed with shields.  The shields are covered in stone marks.  

Rubric for photo 1:

Considering that I felt the need to give a background of the photo, the topic is definitely suffering.  I personally felt that the overall theme of this picture is "control."  In my opinion, this picture is not news, it is showing the squatters who is the boss. It shows nothing but police ready for war and violence, which does not propose peaceful resolutions. The total score of this picture indicates war journalism.

Photo 2:

This photo accompanies the article, "China Sends Second Boat to Standoff with Philippines."  The photo is not a bad photo when taken away from the article, but when paired with the article it could be considered war journalism.

I think the scoring of this picture was perfect.  Even though it wouldn't look like war journalism if you just saw it in passing, when the intentions are reviewed, it's clear that it has some characteristics of war journalism.  The fact that the photo is so mocking is my main issue with it.

Photo 3:

This photo is all about Filipino patriotism.  Although I am not against being patriotic, I feel there is a time and place for it, and when telling another country what to do (as the title implies-- "Philippines urges North Korea to be a better neighbor) is when it turns into war journalism.

The photos on the Filipino website are all similarly photographed.  I thought that the message of this picture was a little clearer than the others, but what made this one war journalistic was the fact that the main subject was military officials and it is mocking Korea.

Photo 4:

After looking at so many similar photos on the news site, it was starting to get extremely redundant.  This photo is not good with the article next to it or without.  It's clearly war journalism, even before using the rubric.

Same thing: military officials, guns, a clear intent to kill; it's war journalism.

I truly think that if the photos were made more positive and if the photographers took a more peace journalistic outlook, the fire that burns between the Philippines and China and other countries they are "rivaling" would burn out.  The more sensationalized the photos, the more fuel on the fire.  It's the same concept with written and spoken reports.