Looting or Finding?

A forwarded e-mail and blogger topic circulating around the Internet juxtaposes two photos from Yahoo News, in which a white person is described as "finding" items, while a black person is described as "looting". The photos were provided for two different news services (the Associated Press and AFP/Getty Images) and the captions for each photo were written by two different photographers. Critics claimed that the wording used to describe two seemingly identical scenarios was racially demeaning, when viewed in comparison. But according to the photographers, the person described as "looting" was seen taking the items from a store, and those described as "finding" found items in the water.
See the explanation