Friday, March 25, 2011

Travel Blogger Steven Frischling's Lies about TWA Flight 800

TWA Flight 800 exploded over the ocean after takeoff from JFK airport on July 17, 1996, killing all 230 people on board. "Travel blogger" Steven Frischling, living on Long Island at the time, took a photo outside a Coast Guard station that shows ambulances.

Frischling has since, in various forums over the past 15 years, exploited the tragedy of Flight 800 by describing scenes he could not possibly have seen and bragged about money he could not possibly have made from photos that could not possibly exist.

Prepare to be offended.

Only weeks after the accident, Frischling responds to a spammer on a newsgroup to brag he made more than $2,000 in six hours because 230 people died one night:

alt.journalism.photo: "Great CASH GAINS" (8/3/1996)
"6hrs at TWA Flight 800, I was the only non-related civilian on the US Coast Gaurd base, I made over $2,000 in 6 hrs........."
A few years later, that amount has climbed to $7,000+:

Sports Shooter: "Stringing for AP" (12/1/2003)
"The last assignment I really shot for the AP was in the morgue the night TWA Flight 800 crashed off Long Island. AP got it's five or six photos for $180 (x2 because of the time I invested, and access I was able to get without their help) plus miles, and I managed to get $7,000 from Newsweek for photos they never ran in their North American editions."
Contrast that to six years earlier, when he claimed he had banked nearly a year's salary that night, and also makes the absurd claim of being inside the makeshift morgue! First, it is doubtful the authorities would have allowed a photographer in that morgue, and if they had, don't you imagine that those photos would been seen all over the world?

NPPA-L: "Who Makes What...some actual numbers" (7/20/1997)
"then again I left a few days before TWA 800, was the only photog on thebase or in the morgue that night and made a little less that the yearly salary in one night..."
He repeats this claim about the morgue in 2008, and now brags he has been at "multiple plane crashes!"

FlyerTalk: "anyone ever been through an aborted takeoff/landing?" (5/14/2008)
"Having shot around multiple plane crashes in my news career, including being the pool photog in the make shift morgue for a 747 that blew up, I'm not keen on being on crashing planes. I'd rather shoot news than be news."
But being in the vicinity of a plane crash and making a fortune off it is not dramatic enough for Steven Frischling.  In 1999 he hijacked a thread about the Columbine school shooting in Littleton, Colo., to grab some attention for himself by overstating his connection to Flight 800. He admits to making "bad jokes about TWA 800" (he's all class!) but you must understand, he needs to make these jokes! Even three years later, it is all Frischling can do to get through each day after the hell he witnessed that night!

NPPA-L: "Littleton, Tornadoes, etc." (5/5/1999)
"I know I have made a number of bad jokes about TWA 800, but I also know that I never want to see my negatives again from the night the 747 crashed. Making jokes, seeming all confident and strong is what kept me and keeps me from falling down in a ball of tears."
What a sensitive soul.

He also claims a county detective ripped the film from his camera, and describes distraught Coast Guard "boys" standing over stacks of body bags!

NPPA-L: "seeking police contacts" (2/22/1998)
"I think most of us have faced this. While on the USCG base the night TWA Flight 800 crashed an over zealous Suffolk County Detective,who had no offical power, as he was ona federal military base, where I was a guest, ripped the film from my camera, he was escortd from the base, and the base X.O. filed a complaint against him."
NPPA-L: "to die for?" (9/29/1997)
"5 photos were taken durring actual rescues, including photos of USCG rescuers over a stack of body bags the night TWA 800 crashed just outside the morge, these men(boys really) are holding each other and holding in tears"

This guy is literally unbelievable.

Extra thoughts come from a commenter, who clearly knows a thing or two about news photography:
"If he was actually on an assignment for AP he would have not been able to sell his images to Newsweek for what he is describing as a high fee for first look (to get exclusive images in order to beat out the other news mags) AP would have owned his film.

If he was pool for the morgue his images would have appeared on all the wire services, but they do not.

If he had been INSIDE the morgue he would have had access to powerful images that would have surely run all over the place. I have never seen one.

There is ONE photo on the AP wire of the exterior of a coast guard station with ambulances parked in front. Nothing from inside. No dramatic photo of Coasties holding back tears as they stack body bags."
Another commenter:
"I have googled, binged and yahooed every possible variation of TWA flight 800 morgue as well as East Moriches Coast Guard TWA morgue and have come up with nothing other then a reporter who won a Pulitzer Prize for his story about the morgue following the crash of TWA 800. I looked on the AP wire, AFP and UPI - not a single pool picture of body bags stacked or anything from inside or outside a morgue on the night the plane crashed. The photos that Frischling describes would have ran EVERYWHERE and would still have a presence on the web. Weeping Coasties and body bags? Hell, a picture like that might have even been a contender for the Pulitzer. I think the real story is that he shot the outside of this building using direct flash and that was about it. Like I said, if he had been the pool photographer, all of those pictures would have been shared with all of the wire services and he wouldn't have made a dime on resales because the market would have been saturated with those photos since they would have been distributed by multiple outlets."
Do you find this offensive that anyone would exploit the deaths of 230 people in such a manner? Do you find it absurd that this giant tool still has a travel blog on BoardingArea.com? Meet Randy Petersen, the owner of BoardingArea and founder of FlyerTalk, who refuses to remove Frischling's blog despite being well informed about his actions. In fact, it would appear Randy Petersen even pays Steven Frischling a share of the money from the advertising on the site! (Do you think BoardingArea.com advertisers know what their ads are appearing next to?) By the way you can email Randy Petersen at randy@boardingarea.com to ask why he still keeps Frischling as one of his bloggers, whom he claims are all "hand selected" by his "team!"

Randy Petersen, BoardingArea.com founder

221 comments:

  1. I've been joking around now and then on this blog, but the brides that get their weddings ruined and this - there's just no joking. Hats off to the people who took time out of their lives to uncover this stuff.

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  2. ""The last assignment I really shot for the AP was in the morgue the night TWA Flight 800 crashed off Long Island."

    If he produced such stunning imagery in the face of such a horrific tragedy why was this his "last assignment" for the AP?

    And he is thought of to be a reputable blogger on the airline/travel biz after exploiting a tragedy like this?

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  3. nothing about this fucktard surprises me anymore, even this. He's the lowest. And this is just on stuff he's written. Imagine all the lies he's told in person.

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  4. Someone just emailed me about this particular debate on this blog and I wanted to chime in.

    I covered the TWA 800 crash for USA Today. I was a contract photographer in Washington, D.C. at the time and came with USAT staffer Tim Dillon. I was one of the four or five photographers in the first pool the Coast Guard set up.

    That first morning after the explosion, as some of you might remember, the ocean was dead calm and the tail section of the plane was frozen on the surface. Photographers were hiring fishing boats to take them out. (I remember seeing Gary Cameron in a row boat with a 600mm.) But by the time the Coast Guard finally organized a pool, a storm had rolled in and the seas became incredibly rough. A small group of us went out in a Coast Guard boat as it trolled for bodies.

    My memory is a bit foggy. I think Stephan Savoia was on that boat for the AP, though I could be wrong. Maybe Ray Stubblebine too? I do remember that we were out that afternoon for at least six hours. Other than throwing up from seasickness about 57 times over the course of our search, I don't remember making a single picture worth transmitting. A few pieces of debris but no bodies.

    (Note to Mr. Frischling: Not everything ends up with a dramatic picture.)

    According to the links provided, Mr. Frischling writes, "5 photos were taken during actual rescues, including photos of USCG rescuers over a stack of body bags the night TWA 800 crashed just outside the morge, these men(boys really) are holding each other and holding in tears."

    This is interesting. I know Mr. Frischling was not in the official Coast Guard pool that was set up. And I know there wasn't a second pool. So where his pictures "during actual rescues" came from, I can only guess. Perhaps a private boat.

    Moreover, while I was not at the makeshift morgue--as there were no dramatic pictures to be made, I was told to fly to Williamsport, PA to cover the funeral mass for the high school French class killed on the flight-- I find it super dooper hard to believe that Mr. Frischling was "morgue pool," given A) the presence of veteran AP staffers in town; B) makeshift morgues at commercial airline crashes aren't generally opened up to the media; and C) his puzzling comment re the age of the Coast Guard sailors, which to me is akin to a poker player's "tell."

    "...these men(boys really) are holding each other and holding in tears," Mr. Frischling states.

    Boys really??? Who speaks like this unless they're in some Humphrey Bogart movie? And how old was Mr. Frischling at the time? The sailors in question would have been most likely around the same age as he was, so the whole "boys really" thing just sticks out like a sore thumb of embellishment to me. Moreover, where are the photos? Were the dramatic pictures of these "boy" sailors comforting each other on the roll of film that was ripped from his camera?

    I don't know Mr. Frischling but I do know that when you start talking about specific events, you're bound to run into people who were there as well.

    I also know am disgusted by the notion that Mr. Frischling would have ever admitted to joking about this particular crash. As I was in the cathedral in Williamsport photographing that funeral mass, I remember shooting a touching image of three high school girls sobbing as they prayed. Thinking I was at a safe distance with my 300, I recoiled in horror as the girl in the middle locked her eyes on me, stood up, walked up thirty pews and sobbed, "Please stop taking my picture." To this day I am haunted by that moment. What on earth could Mr. Frischling have found to joke about?

    Matt Mendelsohn
    Washington, DC

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  5. There is no shame in this man. There's no story he won't exploit for his own good.

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  6. Do I have this right - his comment "6hrs at TWA Flight 800, I was the only non-related civilian on the US Coast Gaurd base, I made over $2,000 in 6 hrs........." was made August 3 1996? He's bragging about how much money he made less than 3 weeks after this terrible accident? Not to mention outright lying about it, and on top of that he has to insert he was the only non related civilian on the base, as if that qualifies him as something special?

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  7. ^You're right - we just edited it to note that it was only weeks after the accident!

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  8. Randy's a sociopath, so it figures that he'd want to hang out with a liar like Fish. Randy only surrounds himself with people who are shameless asskissers.

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  9. interview with Randy Petersen the genius
    http://vimeo.com/4451132

    Why would anyone do an interview laying back like this? is he drunk? Sit up dude!

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  10. 11:12 didn't one guy who worked for Randy embezzle a shitload of money from some other company and then kill himself?

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  11. ^yes, Randy Petersen associates with all kinds of winners.

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  12. Now I'm not surprised. I had a completely different image of Randy Peterson - a smart, confident, but mislead businessman. Oh. Was I mistaken. No wonder. Now I see how it is Frischling still has any voice at all left on the internet. If not for a moronic loon like Randy, Frischling would have practically no place to go, except for those stupid tweets.

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  13. Yeah, google Barton Watson - he was one of Randy's favorite moderators on Flyertalk (Liartalk) and embezzled a fuckton of cash.

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  14. ewww Randy looks gross

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  15. Latest from Fish on Facebook:

    "Counting down the days until the official launch of a project that will flip how airports use social media onto a whole new track ... I sure hope this airport knows what it signed on for :0)"

    Evidently the airport is in for a big surprise! Woo Hoo!

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  16. "Counting down the days" because he has nothing else to do.

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  17. Oh please keep posting his FB status updates. Many of us have severed all SM contacts with this clown so we need to rely on the bold souls who will maintain a contact despite his pungent taint.

    On a more serious note - to the families of the victims of TWA Flight 800 I offer a sincere apology about the hurtful potential of this thread. We are sorry for your profound losses and even more sorry that an alleged member of our profession has so belittled those losses with his thoughtless actions. Please allow us the opportunity to rectify that malodorous action.

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  18. Is it possible he still thinks all of this is fake? That he's got nothing to worry about?

    Send an email to Randy. He deserves it. So does Frischling. Do something today to put a dent in this con's activities.

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  19. Wow! Steven Frischling steals from Chris Elliot, makes up TSA quotes, gets suspended from twitter, suspiciously gets cut from the KLM blog after less than a month and on and on. I guess travel blogging really is the wild west. I thought Boarding Area was a reputable blog, but I thought wrong. They just lost me as a reader!

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  20. Perhaps his "made a little less that the yearly salary in one night" statement is correct - would it surprise you to find out he only made $2,000 a year?

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  21. "Oh please keep posting his FB status updates. Many of us have severed all SM contacts with this clown so we need to rely on the bold souls who will maintain a contact despite his pungent taint."

    Ok guys, you know there is no way he can keep this secret. As soon as we know the airport that supposedly hired him its hash tag blitz-o-rama. Woo Hoo!

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  22. in another flyertalk message board thread he once again claims that he was the "pool" photographer at the morgue. he also says that he was in Atlanta (96 Olympics) when the bombs went off.

    "oddly enough I was the 'pool' morgue photog at TWA 800 the night it went down and I was in Atlanta when the bombs went off, both times shooting for a wire service."

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/832685-when-capps-created.html#post9851957

    and in ANOTHER flyertalk thread he says that he has traveled to plane crashes (he also talks about being at some other events that he was clearly not at in this thread)

    "...got onto planes to go to major airline crashes (was in the morgue the night TWA 800 went down)"

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/524136-have-you-witnessed-experienced-any-major-historical-events-while-travelling-3.html#post5547702

    Does anyone have a subscription to Digital Wedding Forum. I would guess that there are other variations of his TWA 800 story on their message boards. His screen name is Steven E Frischling.

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  23. From 7:37 Flyertalk link:

    "I was in NYC on 9/11, I have seen a transitional Gov't try and take power in Iraq, been to quite a few WTO riots, got onto planes to go to major airline crashes (was in the morgue the night TWA 800 went down), in Puerto Rico in '98 for Hurricane George, in New Orleans for Katrina"

    Anybody can cross check the Hurricane George presence?

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  24. 8:35
    Fish Fraud covered the Hurricane Georges story - http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2011/02/steven-frischlings-category-5-hurricane.html

    But, of course, another version of his hurricane story surfaced on the NPPA ListServ -

    "I ended up in Puerto Rico yesterday/this morning from Dover (DE) AFB and was then on Roosevelt Roads (PR. The day started with the Pubic Affairs Officer grabbing one TV crew and heading to Puerto Rico on an earlier transport, leaving myself and a CBS crew from Philly (myself and the CBS crew arrived over an hour early). The Public Affairs Officer did not ask if we checked in at the Main Gate, and did not come to see if we
    were in the passenger terminal on the air force base, he did not see us,
    so he left. The three of us left (anchor, TVPJ and myself) were at
    least fed, offered 9 holes of golf (we had to pass on them) and were
    taken to Puerto Rico a little bit later in the day, cutting our access
    to almost nothing.
    All in all, it is always challenging having to get your photos when over
    half your access time has been cut away and you arrive with 45 minutes
    of daylight time still available. Looking at my film, I am actually
    amazed I was able to pull off the shots I pulled off despite arrived at
    5:45PM , not 11:AM and having no time to exit the military base for the
    photos I needed.
    All in all I am a tad tired, happy with my work, wire is happy with
    thier two photos (on time....sort of). Each day as it is said is a
    learning experience, I learned I did not like driving 3.5 hrs to be put
    on hold for 7 hrs, a 4hr flight , 2 hrs off the plane, 3.5 hrs stuck on
    the plane on the ground, 4hr flight home....but hey I got to meet a
    great crew from CBS in Philly (could not have asked to be straned with
    two nice guys...if anyone is in Philly say hi to Ukee and Jim for me)."

    http://groups.google.com/group/bit.listserv.nppa-l/browse_thread/thread/469bc48037ad5a6e/c67feca083ad4ab8?hl=en&ie=UTF-8&q=steven+frischling&pli=1

    There two pictures on the Reuters wire of bottles of water being offloaded from a plane on the tarmac in PR. Clear skies in the midday sun.

    As for seeing a transitional gov't trying to take power in Iraq, well, since he has only been to an airport in Basra for 6 hours, I don't see how that is possible unless he saw it on TV. Quite a few WTO riots? How about one in Canada back in 2001. Hurricane Katrina was also covered by Fish Fraud and as far as I can tell, he wasn't there 8 days after the hurricane hit. I never saw him (and the other photographers who I knew there never saw him) and no pictures that would have prove that he was there have ever surfaced. I guess another overzealous police officer must have tore his film from his camera again.

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  25. wow, i am a regular reader of boardingarea.com and i thought it was a legitimate site. by willingly having shady bloggers on the payroll makes me question just about everything that appears on that site now. shame.

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  26. BREAKING! - Steven Frischling social media airport revealed - http://bit.ly/hMGsjy

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  27. 3:39 etc. Please write to Randy and tell him, if you haven't already. I'm not FF, just another disgusted member of the planet Frischling doesn't live on.

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  28. @1030 I doubt even a Fisher Price airport would hire him.

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  29. "The US Embassy in the Green Zone in Iraq is heavily fortified, I have seen that from the inside and outside."

    Hang on, I thought our intrepid lad had only been on an air base in Basra during his "time" in Iraq?

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/553099-what-most-secured-guarded-embassies-you-have-been.html

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  30. On his June '08 GMA appearance:
    "I had roughly 4.7 million folks watching the segment so I really hope I don't sound like a blithering idiot."

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/830334-youtube-clip-me-good-morning-america-discussing-airport-security.html

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  31. "I had roughly 4.7 million folks watching the segment so I really hope I don't sound like a blithering idiot." TOO LATE! Another self inserted aggrandizing comment.

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  32. More bizness advise (I just completed the Fish Grammar Correspondence Course, only $19.95 for all eight hours!)

    "Personally, I am a photographer and I build a niche' for myself. A lot of photographers travel, even more never go anywhere. For me, my market is clients who need "in-and-out" work. My assignments have taken me all around the world, but I see very little. I have been to Beijing for less than 8 hours (I live outside of New York), I often go to Hong Kong for less than a day. When I do get to stay it is often where I don't want to be (three assignments in Iraq while still working as a news photographer)."

    Last time I checked our lad had two Iraq "assignments" in Basra and with the USCG offshore.
    (Anyone queueing up for the requisite cheap shot on his "in-and-out work?)

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/milesbuzz/803445-jobs-frequent-air-travel-3.html

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  33. The grizzled combat photographer and the rigors of travel. Very gripping stuff here:
    "....and in a trip home from Iraq, where I was an embedded photojournalist, I made my Gulf Air flight by about 20 min. I docked up from a US Coast Guard Cutterin Bahrain, caught a ride to the airport and boarded as fast as I could to make my flight home. I boarded wearing combat boots, filthy green cargo pants an incredibly smelly field shirt , had not bathed in 3 days, shaved in 10 days. I took my seat in F with many unusual looks from other pax as to what I was doing up there."

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travelbuzz/830739-thats-nice-dear-what-did-you-wear-4.html

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  34. Here is our lad practicing some of his much vaunted SM advice:

    "Opinions based on total a lack of complete facts, confusion of specific facts (which I have read in a few media stories) and conjecture seems like a fun hobby to converse about."

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/1034711-did-tsa-ghost-write-flyingwithfish-tweet-twitter-coercion-3.html

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  35. the airport is CHO

    http://www.gocho.com/airport/info/about/

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  36. it's US Airways at CHO

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  37. http://www.boardingarea.com/bloggers.php

    Don't stop with writing to Randy. Write to the other bloggers on boarding area. Frischling's association with the site taints all of their work. Do they want to be associated with a lunatic who brags about how much money he made from a tragedy? Do they want to be associated with someone who believes it's okay to totally fabricate events involving the loss of life? Let them know how you feel about it.

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  38. 11:42
    what a clown. he was on a coast guard cutter for 5 freekin' days not out in the middle of the desert sleeping in a foxhole for weeks on end. they have showers on coast guard cutters or maybe they removed them just like they took out the bathroom on the coast guard jet for a 24 hour non-stop flight that was refueled inflight. oh yeah, the coast guard doesn't have any aircraft that can be refueled inflight.

    what is even more hilarious about that story is that he says that the flight crew went out of their way to get him a razor, shampoo and a towel. come on! I can't even begin to count how many fuck up slobs I have seen on planes. he had to have been (if this actually happened) spouting off about how he just hiked 50 miles in the desert while humping a 200 pound iraqi man on his back.

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  39. 11:42
    also worth noting that on a sports shooter thread frischling states that he went back to his hotel after being in the field for 8 days. if you have been following the iraq stories that fish fraud wrote about you will remember how he talks about one of his cameras getting so dirty that it was unusable.

    http://fishfraud.blogspot.com/2011/02/blogger-steven-frischling-lies-about.html

    here is what he says on 6/2/04 - completely contradicting his claim that he ran from the boat to the plane.

    "I was overseas working on a story and stupidly didn't turn one of my bodies off while changing lenses. The CCD was so dirty by switching lenses with the camera on it became useless to me. I was unable to get to my KimWipes, tweezers and 99% alcohol until I got back to my hotel room.....8 days after this happened.

    http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=9889

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  40. 10:56AM
    There is no way that frischling ever went to the US Embassy in Baghdad. He never went to Baghdad and never left the airport in Basra.

    The US Embassy that opened in the Green Zone didn’t open until July 1, 2004 and was in one of Saddam’s former palaces. Sure, it was fortified - with sandbags, Hesco barriers and soldiers, but nothing like the new Embassy that was built in the Green Zone and opened in January of 2009. The new embassy is considered one of the largest and most expensive embassies in the world and is actually a fortified building.

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  41. 2:46. I'm beginning to believe our bipedal lens carrier lives several lives at once. How else to account for this?

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  42. 2:54 Have you seen the Incredible Adventures of Baron von Munchausen? That's how he lives several lives at once. And I'm sure the crack dealers he met at the Red Hook Housing Projects hooked him up with sumpin to help with that, too.

    "Too delusional to be taken seriously,
    Too arrogant to see the truth."

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  43. US Air has a hub at CLT (Charlotte Douglas International Airport). Is that where he's working? CHO is tiny.

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  44. If you start to write about the other bloggers at BoardingArea, Gary Leff is one of the other frauds. He's a CFO for some university and uses his own personal credit cards for a fuckload of expeneses and earns miles off of it. He's as useless as Randy is.

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  45. ^"Gary Leff is Chief Financial Officer for a university research center, where he gets to hang out with Nobel laureates in economics, a member of the 9/11 Commission, and a New Zealand Cabinet Minister"

    Is everyone on Boarding Area a total douchebag?

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  46. @10:39 - listen to the podcast...he tells an overseas photo gear carry-on issue/challenge/miraculous Fish solution story that has to be utter bs.

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  47. here is the link:

    http://www.insidedigitalphoto.com/radio-programs/idp-radio-steven-frischling-photo-travel-tips

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  48. "it's US Airways at CHO"

    How do we know this - what is source? FF has to follow it and hash tag to let everyone know the truth.

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  49. http://cheezburger.com/View/4593810432

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  50. Here are some godawful bridal photos that Frischling took of Candice from Hong Kong:

    http://fishfoto.typepad.com/fishfoto/2008/04/11-april-2008-h.html

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  51. 11:14
    he sounds really arrogant. especially with the way he describes talking to tsa agents and how he speaks down to them when they (allegedly) question him about stuffing his pockets with gear. it is amazing that nobody has laid this guy out.

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  52. ^Does he shoot everything at 16mm? It looks like he learned about slow-sync on his flight, and decided to try it out.

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  53. Yes, everyone on Boarding Area is a douchebag and most likely a fraud to boot.

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  54. Ugh! His girlfriend takes better photos with her I-Phone.

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  55. Why does the guy call him "Fish-ling"? Is that how you pronounce his name? The "r" is silent?

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  56. 11:14
    ok, so in this stupid radio interview, he says that his bag is one and one half pounds over weight because he bought a bunch of candy for his flight home. so, instead of just taking out one and one half pounds out he takes out two cameras, three lenses, a flash and a half dozen batteries? why? what is the fucking statement that he is trying to make here? just a camera body out, put it on your shoulder and call it a day.

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  57. His name used to have an "r". But after being horribly maimed in three war zones, a protracted tour through the projects, multiple major airline disasters and a brief stint living in Massachusetts, it finally succumbed to the pressure and passed away. Multiple trips to NPS and claims to Hayes could not bring it back. In honor of the the fallen R, he now makes sure he inserts an "f" before the aperture everytime he mentions a lens, and US evertime he mentions a dollar figure.

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  58. OMG the Arab Street is less exciting than this blog! The crowds are growing and uncovering more of Frischling's moronic life.

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  59. 11:34. Oh NO! And miss an opportunity to tell us about how much gear he has? I'm surprised he didn't mention breaking his poor little finger getting the gear out of his bag.

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  60. also in the radio interview, he talks about being in the middle east and "where he was coming out of he was wearing desert combat boots" and people were looking at his feet and immediately pegged him as an american and he had to explain to them that he was not a soldier but a photographer. wow. wtf? first of all. go to terminal two in dubai (a hub for flights into iraq, afghanistan and other area of mideast conflit) a high percentage of every journalist, contractor and soldier that passes through there has on some sort of desert boots. most of those people are not americans. just goes to show his ignorance of what war looks like. also, he was in bahrain which has a us military base and the people of bahrain are used to seeing americans. so, I don't get why he thought he was being targeted or scoped out. if you're going to say that you are some heroic combat photographer, you might want to get the facts straight.

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  61. The more I read comments written by people who seem to know much more about what they're talking about than Frischling, the more interesting this gets. What Frischling did to deserve this particular post is appalling. How many different ways are there to say APPALLING. It doesn't really matter how much is photos might suck.

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  62. 7:53, except that never happened. In real life, he pisses his LL Bean pants every time someone with authority looks at him.

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  63. In the "Steven Frischling Sickened by Hurricane Katrina!" blog post, someone posted this comment:

    "Covered in ash and having yet to sleep or bathe I stopped by my daughter's day care to see her, and since it was nap time just to kiss her and look at her. I am so grateful that the destruction was not "here," but it still happened in my "home," and I am just devastated physically (burns on the back of my neck) and emotionally.

    http://commfaculty.fullerton.edu/lester/writings/ethicsmatters092001.html"

    On the digital wedding forum, in a thread entitled "9/11 - What Would You Have Shot?", Steven Frischling wrote on 9/11/06:

    "I left NYC on Sept 12 at noon to go back home to my wife and kids in Western Massachusetts. I arrived at my daughter's day care to pick her up, but I was not allowed to, I didn't realize I was still covered in dust and whatever else fell on me. I went home, showered, picked up my daughter, gave my wife a big hug, and drove back down to NYC."

    ReplyDelete
  64. 5:14
    "I didn't realize I was still covered in dust and whatever else fell on me..."

    Yes, I'm sure. Especially when taking out and putting away all that sensitive camera gear, getting in and out of his car, walking up to the day care center, probably eating something along the way. I'm sure it never occurred to him that he was covered in dust and debris. If he ever was.

    ReplyDelete
  65. 5:14 "wife and kids" - He only had one kid back in 2011. The other ones came along later. And he had no wife, never has.

    I wonder if this is the daycare he ripped off and later sued him?

    ReplyDelete
  66. Wife, no wife - whatever - its his foggy reality. Frischling is not of this world. This blog peels back a layer each week and what do we find? Yet another of deceit, lies and stupidity. The miracle is that one human can collect so much garbage.

    Wait until the "new" client discovers this. Just like the last one, they'll dump him. Remember the old age home that needed social media?

    ReplyDelete
  67. In a thread entitled "Please keep Fish in your thoughts" on the digital wedding forum, Steven Frischling wrote (on 2/18/07) about his 2-week-old son's bout with RSV and the need for a medi-vac flight to a larger hospital because of respiratory failure.

    On the sportsshooter board ("SI Sued for dropped camera equipment"), he wrote on 10/11/07 that his older son "had to undergo major reconstructive surgery at two weeks old" due to a botched circumcision.

    Back on the digital wedding forum, in a thread entitled "If I was a lawyer and would sue," Frischling wrote on 9/5/07 that he'd "sue the lawyer who is now involved in the endless pain in the @$$ bride from last year."

    If I was Steve Frischling, I think I'd choose to sue the person who messed up the circumcision rather than the PITA bride who filed "4 BBB complaints under false names." Oh yeah, you can't sue for something if it didn't happen.

    ReplyDelete
  68. speaking of weddings, frischling was such an awesome wedding photographer that he didn't even have to advertise - people just seemed to find him.

    "I do virtually no advertising for weddings. Two weeks ago I shot a wedding in Vancouver BC; last week I shot an engagement session in Philly; yesterday I shot an engagement session in Newport, RI; next Friday I have three Engagement sessions in San Francisco; five days later I shoot urban-city scape images in Philly, the following day I shoot the same project in Frankfurt,Germany, the immediate day after that I am shooting an engagement session in Hong Kong; one week later I am off to Paris for three days;two weeks home;then off to shoot a three day wedding affair in Paris/Versailles; one week later I'm in Western Massachusetts; then off to shoot a wedding in Hong Kong; following week a wedding in Manhattan and the next day in Boston.

    I am not sure how my schedule ends up this way, it just does.

    So no fan club, no fan base, no real advertising.People just seem to find me." - http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=28839

    but, as quoted in john harrington's blog...

    “Steve has recognized this. He markets himself for weddings internationally using Craigslist in London, Paris, Tokyo, Boston, Sydney,Hong Kong, Dubai, and Miami. Each of those links shows you how he's promoted himself there. In fact, the Miami listing offers a 37% discount, and the DC listing offers a 44% discount off his regular rates.”
    http://photobusinessforum.blogspot.com/search?q=frischling

    and a simple google search shows that he has his name on several wedding sites.


    http://www.projectwedding.com/vendor/show/steven-e-frischling

    http://swppusa.com/photographers/Frischling77787.htm

    http://www.wedj.com/dj-photo-video.nsf/moreinfo?open&dj=B96FAB89A2ECCA718625724E005311E8

    http://www.visualbride.co.uk/directory/ppackages.php?id=134d0a98075d48fdb9a9357a1ab92c85403

    http://yankton-djs-sd.wedj.com/dj-photo-video.nsf/moreinfo?open&dj=3BF12AEFD3713FCC8625707800803E0E

    ReplyDelete
  69. I imagine it is going to be really difficult to top the 9 gunshot wounds and the TWA 800 flight posts.

    Then again, I have said that before and you have brought these out. There is apparently no end to Steven Frischling's narcissism and lying.

    ReplyDelete
  70. You can hear the sound of violins when you read Frischling's comments in the "Please keep Fish in your thoughts" thread, and they get louder with each of his posts.

    First there's mold in their basement and in "about 40% of the structural wood beams" which Frischling treated but it's still there and the baby will have "no where to go because he cannot come home" due to the mold in the air.

    Then he writes, "We've had our house inspected for the mold a few times, every answer is the same, they would need to remove the roof, all the interior flooring and all the interior walls to remove the mold so the removal is way to expensive to justify it on a house we have out grown."

    The guy is a walking soap opera.

    ReplyDelete
  71. 8:36, where can I see that thread?

    ReplyDelete
  72. ^8:36, it's on digitalweddingforum.com.

    ReplyDelete
  73. ^DigitalWeddingForum is private. Can you copy and paste his post here? Thanks.

    ReplyDelete
  74. FF, sure. Should I replace the baby's name with an "X" or something?

    ReplyDelete
  75. On 2/18/07, 4:31 AM, a digitalweddingforum.com member started a thread called "Please keep 'Fish' in your Thoughts":

    I just got this email from Fish (Steven Frischling) via his Blackberry stating that they just flew his son to the hospital:

    “My 2 week old son, Guppy, was just MediVac'd to a children’s hospital from our local hospital in respiratory distress. He was severely hypo-thermic, his temperature now under the lamps at Yale New Haven Hospital is still only 96degees, and he started have shallow breathing and the first suspected an on set of heart failure which they have now ruled out in the past two hours.

    He should be just fine and home in a few days, although my wife and I were scared to death for the first few hours. Anyway, I probably won't be on the DWF for a few days…”

    ReplyDelete
  76. Frischling posted on DWF (2/18/07, 9:06 PM):

    Folks

    Thank you so much for your thoughts, kind words, well wishes and prayers.

    I have a few minutes of down time and just wanted to respond to this thread. My wife has just left for the evening to go see our other two children who were being watched by a friend and I am just using this time to try and be calm and relax, if that is even close to being possible.

    My son Guppy, who many of you may know, was just born on the 30th of January. He has been a happy healthy baby, however he developed what seemed like a small cold a few days ago, around the same time his two year old brother and I developed a cold. We had gone to the doctor on Thursday and he was put on simple saline drops, which usually work. On Friday night he seemed to be sleeping a bit to much but the doctor told us he was fighting the cold and check in the next morning.

    Well we checked in a few times and Guppy hadn't eaten in 12 hours, he then ate only 2 oz and then didn't take any food from mom or from me (me by bottle) for another 6 hours. I noticed his colour looked off and checked his temperature and he was 93.9F for the next 45min I warmed receiving blankets in front of a space heater and wrapped him in them, then placed him inside the blanket into a fleece suit, cuddled him against my body and kept him under a down blanket, his maximum temperature was 95.5F, which we believe was probably off by about 0.5. The optimal temperature, at a minimum, was 97F. At this point Guppy looked very grey with blue lips and my wife and I decided he needed to go to the E.R.

    Upon arrival at the E.R. the triage nurse took one look at his skin tone and started to check to make sure he was alive and breathing, although I assured her that he was. The average wait time last night at the E.R. was 2.5 to 3 hours and we were admitted in a little under a minute. Within a minute we had two doctor examining Guppy and within 15 minutes of that they called for Life Flight to be dispatched to pick him up and transport him to the pediatric ICU. While in the E.R. at our local hospital Guppy's respiratory system began to fail while awaiting the MediVac. As the doctors tried to run an IV they discovered he was to dehydrated to stick with a needle and ended up forcing an I/O IV through the bone in his right shin. Generally an IV straight through to the bone is rare and only used in the rare emergency case (at least this was my experience when I worked on a 911 ambulance). I knew it was really bad when Guppy didn't have the strength to cry as they did this (it is a very painful procedure) At one point Guppy started to go to sleep and when he slept he would stop breathing entirely. This is when my wife and I began (each in our own way) began to panic/freak out/lose it, whatever you want to call it.

    ReplyDelete
  77. 2/18/07, 9:06 PM continued....

    Once the MediVac landed the flight crew determined Guppy was not stable enough to fly, but he needed to go and go fast, which ruled out an ambulance. The flight crew (only the best usually end up on a flight crew) ended up getting him stable in about 30 minutes and he was off.

    He was tested for various things and after a few hours he was diagnosed with a very severe case of Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV). Just about every one has it or carries it. It is usually problematic for babies and smaller toddlers, however at 2.5 weeks old and at only 7lbs 4oz instead of a fever Guppy became severely hypothermic, become extremely lethargic and in the span of 4hrs went from pinkish to grey, to breathing to respiratory failure.

    At the moment Guppy is stable and is still intubated. The doctors do not think they will remove the vent that is breathing for him for at least another 48 hours. He simply isn't strong enough to expand his own lungs and the vent saves him the energy of having to do it himself. His temperature is holding at 97F which is good and he is being kept asleep with medications for pain and so he does not try and remove his own intubation tube.

    They have stopped all testing until tomorrow to let his body rest from the failed IVs, the six or seven unsuccessful attempts at a spinal tap, the I/O and insertion of the vent tube. They suspect Guppy may also have Pneumonia as a secondary illness related to the RSV.

    ............so it looks like Guppy will be in the hospital for a minimum of a full calendar week, the best estimate by most doctors is probably closer to two weeks and around 2:PM today the chief resident started to slowly introduce the idea based on tests , and Guppy's age and weight, we may be here for three weeks depending on severity. By the tests he is just at the start of the virus and they must let it run it's course. Every doctor unfortunately has told us the same thing, he will probably get worse before he gets any better and they he'll need to stay in the hospital until he is fully recovered and other the virus.

    My wife and I now need to play tag-team on shifts of driving around 40 miles each way home and back to swap who has the other two kids and who stays with Guppy. Our two year old son, Big Guppy, doesn't understand any of this and our six year old daughter, Guppyette is devastated that she cannot see Guppy in the hospital. She loves to just hold him.

    No one can hold Guppy and we probably won't be able to pick him up at all for about 5 days from this morning. It really is just heart breaking looking at him on the vent, watching the monitors and not being able to do anything. I think if I had no idea what the monitors meant I might feel better.

    Anyway sorry for the really long post, it probably is not coherent but I just wanted to thank all of you for your well wishes, offers of help and your e-mails ( I am still trying to figure out how two of you, besides Ben, have my Blackberry's direct e-mail address)

    Thanks again

    -Steven (& Susie & Guppy)

    ReplyDelete
  78. Frischling, DWF, 2/19/07, 2:18 AM:

    If I can scream for a minute that would be great

    (AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!)

    About two hours ago (10:PM EST) Guppy's vent tube became slightly clogged. Normally they would expect a baby, even one of his size and age to be able to blow past the minor clog. Given Guppy's physical weakness at the moment he simply stopped breathing for about 10 seconds.

    The nurses had to come in an manually bag him for a few minutes. They suctioned up the minor clog, which is they believe coming up from his lungs (mucus in the lungs)

    The respiratory team came in to check and this happened again. A minor clog, the respiratory specialist said Guppy should be able to push air past the small clog and correct his own breathing without the vents help. Instead of pushing air past the clog Guppy simply stopped breathing again,which meant again the nurses had to manually bag him so he could breath.

    Respiratory and/or a nurse are now in and and out ever 10 min to check on the breathing ( I have a full view of the monitor so I can see if he is exchanging air or not) and to suction out the vent tube.

    Mom is at the end of her rope at home with the other two kids at home 45 miles away............and I wish there was something I could do about it.

    Thanks again for all you kind words and well wishes. It really does mean a lot to us.

    -Fish

    ReplyDelete
  79. Frischling, DWF, 2/9/07, 2:29 AM:

    ........and my Mother who is 60 miles south of the hospital 100 miles south of my house is "frankly just not going to be able to come up and help."

    My six year old just wants Grandma to comfort her and be with her because she is scared. My two year old can be extremely weary of new people and my Mom's answer was "we'll rent you a second car and hire you a nurse to watch the other two."

    A) How the hell is a 2nd car going to help?
    B) We don't need to hire a nurse we need someone who knows our kids, who our kids trust and her freakin' Grandson was MediVac'd to a Pediatric ICU and is listed in serious-stable condition. OK it does say "stable" But he is under 3 weeks old and is in the intensive care unit and is listed and "serious" condition!!!

    WTF???

    OK, I think my venting is over......maybe not, I could vent for 10 pages on this subject alone.

    (back to holding Guppy's hand now, still wish they'd let me pick him up and hold him)

    ReplyDelete
  80. Frischling, DWF, 2/19/07, 5:22 PM:

    Well there is good, bad, and no idea what to do now.

    My wife just updated me, as she is at the hospital now and I am home with the two other kids until the morning when we'll switch again.

    1) The doctor tried Guppy out with the air supply from the vent removed for an hour and Guppy was OK

    2) The doctor removed Guppy's intubation tube and he seems OK. He is still on a feeding tube and IVs so we can't pick him up for about 24 hours.

    3) Guppy has been given some new antibiotics/drugs which have been described as 'extra strength' and they appear to be working much better than expected.

    4) Guppy is still asleep and still has 'gunk' in his lungs which they need to get out of his lungs

    5) We have a known mold problem in our basement. There is mold in about 40% of the structural wood beams.We have had it treated, but is still there and can only be removed by removing 40% of of the structural beams (we all know what that means right?)

    6) The doctors have informed my wife that mold in the air (which we know is not good, but we thought we had it treated pretty solidly) can make the RSV symptoms much more severe, such as in Guppy's case

    7) Even if the 'extra strength' drugs work wonders for an much faster than expected recovery bringing Guppy home, with the mold, could potentially get him just as sick all over again. So he may be discharged faster than expected and have no where to go because he cannot come home.

    We knew we were out of space and needed to move this summer, but this is just terrible.


    I thought I was going to loose my mind last night I really think I may loose it in the next few days on this problem. I am so excited his vent tube is out. I am so excited the new medication is working well beyond what was expected. I am so excited he may come home sooner than expected..........but I can't have him living in the car outside our house.

    It's almost like a cruel joke

    ReplyDelete
  81. Frischling, DWF, 2/19/07, 6:39 PM:

    ........and my Mother has another winning comment, oh joy. Hold onto your hats.

    She new of the mold. However she asked what was going on, so I told her flat out about the problem with bringing Guppy home. Her answer .....and I quote from her instant message ........drum roll please.....

    "You'll just have to figure it out."

    No $#!+ really? I'll just have to figure it out?

    I didn't ask for a down payment for a new house (we've had our house inspected for the mold a few times, every answer is the same, they would need to remove the roof, all the interior flooring and all the interior walls to remove the mold so the removal is way to expensive to justify it on a house we have out grown) I was simply telling her the facts as they were conveyed to us by the Pediatrician and Respiratory Specialist treating Guppy.

    OK I need to go scream in a dark sound proof room right now

    ReplyDelete
  82. Frischling, DWF, 2/19/07, 7:03 PM, in response to a poster asking if his family can move into an apt., sell the house, start looking for a new house:

    We quickly dicussed and had to dismiss this.

    Two adults, three kids, two large hunting dogs and my office? Renting with big hunting dogs is very difficult. Also there are no apartments, except a few small studio ones, in my daughter's school zoning. So she'd need to change schools, which is not ideal.

    We need to adjust our moving time table by a few months and sort this out.

    It's like watching a bad ABC Monday Night (chick) Movie, so I guess my wife is Valerie Bertinelli and I'm Tom Skerritt?

    ReplyDelete
  83. ^The most interesting thing is Mama Frischling's reaction. If he is telling the truth, very cold indeed. Most likely she was sick and tired of bailing him out over and over and thought it was stupid of them to keep having children they couldn't afford. You just know he was asking for money.

    "You'll just have to figure it out" - parent translation for "you're on your own, buddy."

    ReplyDelete
  84. agreed. She sounds like a smart lady. No doubt he was "fishing" for yet another big fat loan to bail himself out.

    Plus I doubt they owned their own home. Get the landlord to fix the mold.

    ReplyDelete
  85. "they would need to remove the roof, all the interior flooring and all the interior walls to remove the mold"

    Sounds like he was living in a huge petri dish that should have been condemned. And he probably took this scenario from a "Holmes on Homes" episode.

    ReplyDelete
  86. Frischling's mom is pissed at her son's career choice:

    "With in a about 35 minutes of the report of the accident, not Princess Di's death , so one I have know sometime turned to me and said "It's always the photographers, when are you and your friends (my friends? I know 1 celeb. photog, and he ain't my friend) going to learn?" My mother (who has one son as a PJ, one son as a journalist on word-side, and one son who is a lawyer....boy did she go wrong somewhere , eh?) went off on how the photographers have to
    be at fault. I replied "What is they were not chasing her? Is it not up to the driver to drive at a safe speed in a tunnel" Her reply was "well if the photojournalists would stop the hunt maybe this could have been avoided. Now at the funeral her sons will be subjected to the media again" ... G'eez even my Ma turned on me on this one, if the person who brought me into this world is pissed at photogs, and is confusisng paparazzi with PhotoJs imagine what the rest of the world sees us as? [Cue Violins] I guess I'll close the laptop and sit here in the black night and ponder this somemore. When your Mom turns on you, and people you have known
    for a few years doubt your professions ability to be caring and honest how does the world who does not know you see you?

    NPPA-L

    http://groups.google.com/group/bit.listserv.nppa-l/browse_thread/thread/ae112874b2ffe715/409769e565ca65f6?q=steven+frischling

    ReplyDelete
  87. "When your Mom turns on you, and people you have known for a few years doubt your professions ability to be caring and honest how does the world who does not know you see you?"


    What you mean Willis? The irony is just too rich. Someone owes 11:24 a beer!

    ReplyDelete
  88. Just found this on NPPA-L from Frischling on TWA 800 (9/4/97):

    "Inmy experience at a rather large and deadly plane crash I ended up by some quirk of fate the only photographer in the morgue & search - rescue headquaters. I called my usual desk, despite there being a contract problem & most freelancers were not going there. I met one of the staffers and offered up one image, a single image and the image could not run magazines. This way a photo was out with my name showing were I was an magazines could not use the image. From there I was getting pages , making calls and went to the highest bidder, plus the $200 &
    film from my usual news outlet.

    http://groups.google.com/group/bit.listserv.nppa-l/browse_thread/thread/c1a6413c643ecdae/e06c7b49c6304f35?q=steven+frischling

    ReplyDelete
  89. 11:44

    WAIT!!! I thought the wires got their 5 to 6 pictures and he was the pool and he made a years salary. I am SHOCKED!!!

    ReplyDelete
  90. ^shocking, isn't it?! That Steven Frischling might contradict himself? It's almost unbelievable!

    ReplyDelete
  91. I wonder if Steven Frischling was legitimately disappointed that he wasn't listed as one of Time Magazine's 140 best Twitter Feeds.

    ReplyDelete
  92. Big ups to FishFraud for shining a light on Frischling and driving him off the Sportsshooter message board. Not a peep from him since March 5 and I imagine if he tries to return he is going to get his just desserts.

    ReplyDelete
  93. ^Thank you. On Saturday it will make the fourth week since Frischling's last post on SS. That has to be a record! He must be in withdrawal!

    ReplyDelete
  94. I'm not sure if I posted this or not, he'd been averaging 1.7 (ish) posts per day since he joined in 2002(?). I saw that his last post was the 5th. I can't believe it. Isn't this the pattern that's been mentioned by some other commenters. Sooner or later he'll manage to alienate everyone around him, then try to move on to something else.

    ReplyDelete
  95. ^I haven't seen KLM falling all over themselves to get him back.

    They still have his posts up. I wrote them a letter pointing them to this blog.

    ReplyDelete
  96. Thanks to 3:53's comments on 3/25, I think it's worth pointing out to travel blogs linking to Flying with Fish that they are linking to lunacy like this (his infamous battery label page):

    http://boardingarea.com/blogs/flyingwithfish/2007/12/30/30-december-2007-dont-want-to-be-hassled-about-your-batteries-under-the-new-us-restrictions-for-flying-with-batteries-here-is-a-simple-solution/

    ReplyDelete
  97. KLM must be so proud. He also apparently did work for British Airways - though you wouldn't know it. The recent Lufthansa gig was for Jaunted.

    I wonder if any of these these will lead to repeats. This blog is an awful testimonial in the making.

    ReplyDelete
  98. Jaunted's another shitty blog. When your editor's personal website is http://www.callmeontheyacht.com/, she reeks of that travel blog snobbery because the only way people like Fish and this chick Cynthia can do it is by freebies from travel PR people desperate to score points with "experts."

    ReplyDelete
  99. My comment making fun of Jaunted got deleted. :(

    ReplyDelete
  100. ^It was not deleted, but accidentally marked as spam (probably because of the yacht hyperlink). Sorry about that. It's been unmarked now.

    Feel free to make fun of Jaunted all you want!

    ReplyDelete
  101. Does anyone know which Continental Airlines contact to use to complain about their advertising on BoardingArea?

    ReplyDelete
  102. I can't find one but will keep looking

    they do have a Twitter account though
    http://twitter.com/#!/continental

    ReplyDelete
  103. corpcomm'AT'coair.com

    ReplyDelete
  104. 5:18 Jaunted may be a shitty blog site run by a verifiable c*%t of an editor but it's still a Conde Nast publication. I bet they would care about the filth she is associating with (or possibly inviting on her yacht). I can't find an email but you can call or write:

    Corporate Communications
    Condé Nast Publications
    4 Times Square
    New York, NY 10036
    212-286-2860

    ReplyDelete
  105. 7:18 Thank you.

    A con man can only keep conning people if he can find people who don't know about him. Keep on WRITING.

    ReplyDelete
  106. A Public Service Announcement from PASWAEU (Professional Association of Super-Wideangle Equipment Users)
    Dear Mr. Frischling,
    It has come to our attention (after viewing atrocious examples of your work)- that you are engaged in the destruction of gorgeous brides henceforth listed in this document as "hotties, Betty's, and/or PAYING CLIENTS." These hotties and are then subjected to an array of super-wide deformation and rectilinear correction to make them supposedly 'hotter'. We are further informed that you even expect them to actually pay for the experience of being a completely hot bride who is transformed into a non-color corrected, jaundiced white-balance fail- poster print for a new Steve Frischling book entitled: "101 Waays to Fuck Over an Incredibly HOT Client- or At Least Make Her Look Like SHit!"

    FishFoto is hereby ordered to stop using fisheyes and wideangles immediately while doing portraits! For some reason.... ppl actually want to look good in their pics.... wow, really?!?!

    Furthermore.... it might help if you DELIVERED the product. You can fly to fucking HKG and shoot complete garbage... and then drive an hour and not be able to deliver anything after a yr or two....wow!
    In some countries where you've supposedly been a Super Hero combat photog- (ie: Middle East)- their laws re: shady business dealing- would present us with some great cable air-time of your trial... what do they chop off of the thief when his hands are gone? I wonder???

    ReplyDelete
  107. Another PSA for this guy:

    http://tinyurl.com/ya5kya3

    ReplyDelete
  108. @750am on 3/29's got a point: if he can fly to Hong Kong and shoot, why can't he deliver stuff locally?

    ReplyDelete
  109. NPPA-L, 12/16/97, "Not a reporter (hired help?):

    "The "minor" problem I am having with a certain editor are not getting any better. I was assigned to photograph an event tonight, the St.
    Nicholas Celebration Service, so I photographed the services it said to. On my way there I stopped at an accident that required a medi-vac
    for a 78y/o man who was hit by a car, I made those pictures and then went to my assignment to get what i could. After viewing my choices she told me I was wrong, she wanted some kid
    dressed as "St. Nick", when I balked and said these are better images she replied "everyone knows that you get St. Nick at this service", my
    reply was that I am Jewish and am not familiar with this celebration, I was answered with "well I shoul know it anyway". At some point in
    the conversation I was refered to as "the hired help". This really got me ticked off.......the hired help?"

    Sportsshooter.com, 6/6/03, "Worst Photographer Ever":

    "When I was the chief photog at my former paper we had a part-timer who I was not allowed to fire (Thank goodness the guy I hired to replace me was able to fire him). I would hand this photog his assignments for the weekend, he'd shoot (or log out and soup) 20+ rolls but turn in 4 rolls with maybe 10 shots per roll (these were 36exp Fuji 200 and Fuji 800 rolls). Usually he'd shoot what he wanted totally ignoring the assignments sheets, and his comeback was almost always "Oh, well I thought it was a suggestion." ... In addition this guy had two Nikon F5 bodies, a set of SB-28 flashes and all AF-S glass, yet most of his photos were out of focus, poorly exposed and if he showed up at the assignment the photo was totally irrellivent. My favourite was a photo of a horse jumping competition, he came back with a series of images of a woman with a guitar sitting under a cross in front of a chapel NEAR the horse jumping competition. His caption did state that this woman was singing for Jesus (it litterally did say that) near the horse competition"

    Love how Frischling went from being the 'hired help' who fucked up to the 'chief photog' who wasn't allowed to fire the guy who fucked up...and how the truth morphed into something totally different.

    http://groups.google.com/group/bit.listserv.nppa-l/browse_thread/thread/36bf8096999568cc/8749816bc4efbbfa?q=steven+frischling+st.+nicholas

    ReplyDelete
  110. I just hate it when photos are "totally irrellivent".

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C_Kh7nLplWo

    ReplyDelete
  111. sportsshooter.com 9/30/03, An Exhausting Night at the Emergency Room (incredibly, Frischling didn't start this thread):

    "I've got a visible dent in my skull from a nasty fall skating in a 1/2 pipe when I was younger, and seem to break myself all of often"

    ReplyDelete
  112. Steven Frsichling wrote about his great wedding business:
    "In 2006 I booked around 30 weddings all over the world. I can attribute 2 to the WPJA. This is afer being ranked #35 overall in contest standings in 2005 and being a "Gold Badge" winner for my work."

    Sportsshooter thread #27956

    ReplyDelete
  113. "I've got a visible dent in my skull from a nasty fall skating"

    Hard to tell from all the other dents.

    ReplyDelete
  114. ...and bullett holes, and Katrina plague, and 9/11 debris, and the massive scar left by "Huge" Grant's umbrella, and the permanent symbiotic lung infection from living in a mold-entombed home (and not even Mother Snapper seemed to care), and the missing limbs lost during a host of riots running from flying bulletts and no doubt machetes and poison darts as well. Ax-wielding crazed brides should be in there somewhere along with the foot he lost saving a plane-crash victim from the jaws of a great white shark alongside a Coastguard vessel.

    ReplyDelete
  115. Don't forget that Steve had a 3lb tumor (I'm sorry, *tumour*) removed from his neck...

    ReplyDelete
  116. ^1:27
    How do you get ranked #35 overall in contest standings in 2005 when your name doesn't appear in any contest standings for any year?
    http://www.wpja.com/contests/past-contests.html

    He (or Suzanne) repeats this dubious claim:
    "His work has been ranked among the top 35 Wedding Photojournalists in the world by the Wedding Photojournalists Association."
    http://www.shorelinelifestyle.com/

    Where exactly does it say this anywhere on WPJA? If his name was ever on their website, why was it removed. Where is it now?

    Randy, is this the kind of "journalist" you want on your blog? To anyone thinking of hiring this clown, to anyone thinking Steven Frischling is any kind of "journalist," is this the kind of dishonesty you want working for you? Take a look at the WPJA website. Write to them. Call them. Do they have any record of Steven Frischling winning anything?

    ReplyDelete
  117. oh, and the claim goes from a 35th place in contest standings to being ranked 35th in the WORLD. Gee Steven, I can do that too.

    ReplyDelete
  118. A 3lb tumour?! Couldn't have been. That was his ...UNBORN TWIN!!!! Too bad it was removed, it was probably the one with the brains.

    ReplyDelete
  119. 6:27, 6:51 and 6:55, don't forget his fractured kidney after a "steal" pole hit him in the side.

    sportsshooter, 7/8/03, "what was your biggest break?"

    ReplyDelete
  120. The WPJA top #35 deserves its own thread.

    A simple search for "Frischling" on this page

    http://www.wpja.com/contests/top-photographers.html

    yields.........wait for it.


    Nothing.


    Actually a search for "Frischling" on the entire WPJA yields.....

    Nothing.


    Decide for yourself

    ReplyDelete
  121. He's been to alot of seedy *dangerous, uncivilized* places. Someone likely stole his broken kidney to sell on the organ black-market. He was hit with the pole while trying to take wide-angle shots of the prostetutes and thugs. But they ripped the film out of his camera and broke two lenses and one of his spare bodies over his head to knock him out. When he woke up he was in a tub of ice, and his cellphone battery was dead. Luckily some of his lung-mold was able to go for help.

    ReplyDelete
  122. Here's another photo site that speaks very highly of El Douche:

    http://christinetremoulet.com/blog/for-photographers/so-you-want-to-be-a-destination-wedding-photographer/comment-page-1#comment-35661

    I'm sure we can help straighten that out :-)

    Off topic further: 4 Wks and ONE FULL DAY w/o a SportsShooter post fr him WOOHOOOO!

    ReplyDelete
  123. http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=2634

    SF provokes responses from Bill Frakes
    "I just want to read a consecutive posts by you that don't mention something that has been broken, smashed, spindled, burned, or otherwise maimed--or stolen."
    and Darren Carroll
    "Did you know that if you do a search for the word 'Williams" with your name in the "posted by" field, it returns no less than SEVEN different threads where you've somehow endeavored to regale us with your "I-got-hit-by-Ricky-Williams" tale?"


    Now let's look at the Super G wreck/kidney injury:

    Is it 1991? (SS 1/23/04)

    "I was injured racing in the '91 US Open Super G, so I lost out on sponsor money."
    http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=6979

    Or 1992? (7/8/03) In response to Bill Frakes in thread above:

    "In the 1992 US Open (10th annual US Open) my board broke on turn during the Super G."

    6/17/04 - It's 1991.

    "I was a sponsored competitive snowboard racer in the Slalom, GS and Super G from 1988 to 1991"

    http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=10233

    One could pass off the 1992 reference as a mere slip - EXCEPT he went out of his way to point out that 1992 was the 10th annual.

    On a prior FF thread, his resume was posted, which included his birthdate: Born in Queens County New York, 18-June 1975.

    So he was a professional sponsored snowboarder at 13. Inquiring minds want to know - where's the proof?

    ReplyDelete
  124. Is there no limit to Fish's amazing talents?

    ReplyDelete
  125. This blog discusses SF's use of remotes at one point (the "I let go of a brand new 300f2.8 and camera 100 feet above solid ice" catastrophe). If you want to see how to use remotes, one guy who knows what he's talking about is Bill Frakes, mentioned at 8:58 above. There are many others too, but I wanted to name drop Bill Frakes. Incredible photographs.

    ReplyDelete
  126. oh man, steven frischling is the remote KING. check out what he says on the digital wedding forum back in 2007

    "11/15/07
    I have shot three camera in my lap and six on remotes while shooting NCAA basketball and done four remotes, plus three cameras with me shooting baseball, withpolitics I have had remotes in place 8 or 9 hours prior to an event , outside with ever shifting light, so for where I come from, weddings are a breeze."

    that's right folks, 3 cameras in his lap and six, count them, SIX remotes. he's a god.

    ReplyDelete
  127. 6:59 - Thanks for pointing out the specifics of why I re-posted his claptrap. He doesn't realize that one of us does the initial "research" while others dig right back in to explain the discrepancies in his bs post. Great collaborative work. Like real pj's who know how to work together. More big ups to FishFraud for growing another photo community with purpose.

    8:58 I think his birth certificate might be from the Dominican Republic which means he could be older than 13 at that time...(NYC baseball joke)

    ReplyDelete
  128. ^10:36. A photographer earlier in this blog, in an outstandingly articulated challenge to Fish, mentioned that she/he had never seen Fish win an award during her/his career and mentioned not seeing Fish mentioned on the WPJA site. Your post just brought that to mind so I looked it up.

    ReplyDelete
  129. ^"A photographer earlier in this blog"...challenging Frischling, as well as all of the others, including Sam, have gone entirely unanswered, except for howls of betrayal and psychedelics by the Frischlings. His only answer so far has been to stay away from SS. And to administer to his following of one or two for their support, being as they are his real friends. And making out that his one big lesson is not to post the addresses of confirmed stalkers on twitter. Yeah, that was the lesson smart guy.

    ReplyDelete
  130. does anyone have a video of Ricky Williams tackling Fish?

    ReplyDelete
  131. 11:11PM I think that you're talking about a post that I made about a month ago. If so, many thanks for the compliment. I hadn't planned on posting here at all, but when I saw how he allegedly treated those brides and the idiotic posts that he has apparently made to this site, I lost it. I'm reposting a slightly cleaned up version of it.

    Fish (aka Walter Mitty).

    I'm a photographer that you have known for at least fifteen years and someone who's work I think you respect. If you really believe that there are only a few people watching this site, then you're more delusional than I ever dreamed. I don't know anyone in our industry that hasn't seen what's going on here.

    If it were my reputation being attacked like this, I'd be doing everything that I could to refute the allegations, but instead all you do is attack the messenger with nonsensical rants. If this stuff isn't true, then why don't you stand up like a man and defend yourself instead of attacking this blogger and every other person that you think might be involved? Eventually you might be able to make this site go away, but its contents will live forever.

    As I said, I've known you for quite a while. I was one of the 1,000 or so people that was sent a picture of you in mid masturb from your email address about 10 years ago. While I won't be giving it to this blogger, it's only a matter of time before someone decides that they have heard enough of your bullshit and does (if they haven't already).

    I'll tell you what. If you can answer seven simple questions to my satisfaction, I'll stop coming to this site (I currently hit it about 20 times a day) and I would imagine much of this heat will come off of you.

    1. Concerning the photograph of you holding your schwance. You're explanation was that the photograph was "NOT sent from, and is NOT of me, aside from the face in the photo. The photo is a Photoshop creation." Really?! Then please explain why there is an darkroom enlarger and light table with film on it in the background? Was that another photographer with his schlong in his hand that someone Photoshopped your face on to? I had always suspected you were full of shit, but this really cinched it for me. I could have almost believed that your ex girlfriend, who you said is also a "hacker", sent this picture out to the NPPA list, but did you really think other professional photographers wouldn't notice what's in the background? Do you really think that everyone is as gullible as the few other imbeciles that follow you around? I would call you a retard, but that would be an insult to retarded people. You clearly haven't the sense that God gave the common dog.

    2. Who sponsored you as a Super G Snowboarder from 1988-1991. Give me exact names, places and dates.

    3. You claim to have won awards in photojournalism. I've been in the business a very long time. I don't recall seeing you win any. Exactly what awards did you win in what contests and what dates? BTW, the blue ribbons that your mommy bought you don't count.

    4. You claim through your company "Shoreline Lifestyle Photography" to have been among the "Top 35 Wedding Photojournalists in the world by the Wedding Photojournalists Association." Somehow, your name is nowhere to be found on their site even though they list the top 100 for the last eight years. Care to explain? If the claim doesn't refer to you, who does it refer to?

    5. Where were you ever an EMT/Firefighter? Give me the city, department and dates. Show me proof of your certification.

    6. You claim to have been at ground zero when buildings fell in front of you and even had a camera knocked out of your hand by flying debris that somehow didn't injure you. Show me pictures and explain how you went 200 miles to get to ground zero in one hour.

    --Continued in the next post.--

    ReplyDelete
  132. 7. Where are this bride's wedding pictures? Why haven't you made good on your contract and why haven't you ever shown up in court to defend yourself against other lawsuits? Get these people their pictures or give them their money back or better yet, both. If all these accusations are true then you are not only destroying your reputation, but you're hurting our industry. Have you no decency? Have you no shame? Have you no conscience?

    You have many avenues with which to answer these questions. Pick one.

    Personally, I don't know how you ever conned people into hiring you for anything. I don't think you're capable of finding your asshole with a funnel much less shoot a decent picture (For the two morons who didn't know what I meant by that the first time I said it, I'll break it down for you. It means that you're too stupid to find your ass with the wide end of a funnel). I've got news for you, though. If you keep going the way you are, the guys you meet in prison won't have any problem finding it.

    The best advice that I can give you is to tell the truth and admit what you've done. If not, I think it's inevitable that the infamous picture of you will end up on this site. What headline would you rather read, "Steven Frischling Comes Clean and Explains Himself" or would you rather see the picture of you holding your schmekel with a headline above it that reads "Steven Frischling Cums Clean"? I imagine that the choice is yours. It's all in your hands (pun intended).

    PS. Stop posting on SportsShooter! No one gives a shit what you have to say!!!

    ReplyDelete
  133. Schmekel! I nominate 1:18 for word for the day.

    ReplyDelete
  134. The only thing I'm going to cut Fish a small amount of slack on is wanking it to a girl on the internet. Who among us hasn't done that?

    ReplyDelete
  135. Let's not forget Frischling's allergies:

    NPPA-L, 7/1/98, Eating Habits: "I have a small "cooler bag" in my car that I keep some apple juice in to drink through out the day (since I can not eat solid apples, I am allergic to many fruits)."

    NPPA-L, 8/12/97 Freelancers vs Staff: "I happen to be allergic to almost everything on the planet (dust, pollen, citrus fruits, peant butter)"

    Sportsshooter, 8/23/03, Giving credit to Steven Frischling: "Ummm, deathly allergic to shell fish..."

    Sportsshooter, 9/23/04, Kind of a bizarre question: "I have had allergic reactions to the glue used to adhere the rubber to the D1 and 1D bodies."

    ReplyDelete
  136. oh would someone please send FF the masterbation photo. FF, please digitize out the details of Steven Frischling's penis but leave a link to the original as evidence.

    ReplyDelete
  137. If I still had it, I would. I just could not keep a photo on my computer of a dude pulling his "little fishy".

    ReplyDelete
  138. 8:58. Wouldn't Frischling have been on the US snowboarding team if he had qualified for a Super G race? The 1992 US Open Super G looked to be an international competition. There must be a glitch in ussnowboarding.com's site, since a search of Frischling's name turns up nothing there.

    ReplyDelete
  139. rec.photo.misc (1/17/96):

    "As an ex-competitive snowboard racer (for Kombi, Quimbola Man, Rachlie, Barfoot then Aggression, and Spyder)..."

    Frischling was probably wearing his "Rachlie" boots when he hit that "steal" pole on the punishing slopes of Valley Stream, Long Island.

    http://groups.google.com/group/rec.photo.misc/browse_thread/thread/7f4ef1270a04c5b7/f7736c0f74aca077?q=steven+frischling+snowboard

    ReplyDelete
  140. Gee in the same post he says his set up used a cable release and a wireless. Then there is a description of the set up. Let's see. a camera, a wide angle lens of course, a ball head and a flash. Yeah I can see it now, going down the slopes with this light and aerodynamic set up all held together with tape. Yeah right.

    ReplyDelete
  141. SF lies about all the wrong stuff!! I've seen that picture of him with his cock out in the darkroom, and I've gotta say - it's not small at all.

    After the photo comes out, he made claims that it was a fake photo. Of all the things to lie about? If I had a large member like that (as shown in the photo) I sure wouldn't be lying about it!

    ReplyDelete
  142. 3:18 must be Steven Frischling. We all saw it. Tiny. Basically his fist hid the whole thing.

    ReplyDelete
  143. show us the member!

    ReplyDelete
  144. just contact him and pretend to be a slutty flight attendant with a cockpit fantasy, and he'll probably send it to you himself.

    ReplyDelete
  145. I think this is it http://penistraction.net/contentimages/micropenis2.jpg

    ReplyDelete
  146. We have not had any new blockbuster content for a while. Please show us the guppy.

    ReplyDelete
  147. I don't know why anyone would be interested in seeing that.

    ReplyDelete
  148. it would be another humiliation but maybe not. Wasn't it Steven Frischling that posted it in the first place?

    Another issue is that it may be a violation of blogspot T&C's

    ReplyDelete
  149. 5:41 I think they shouldn't post it because not only that but people might feel sorry for Fish. Though he does deserve the humiliation.

    ReplyDelete
  150. Steven Frishling hijacks another tread in Flyertalk. Notice a pattern here?

    "You're right. We should also rely on the White House for all images of the President (although the current White House Chief Photog is an outstanding and well respected photojournalist).

    We should also rely on the Department of Defense for all images from Iraq and Afghanistan (I've actually briefly embedded as a journalist in Iraq and been more than once).

    Shall we also wait on images from NYPD's DCPI rather than have news photographers at scenes?

    While we're at it ... lets wait on the FAA and NTSB for crash site images instead of having news photogs there! (I was a pool photog at the USCG Base in East Moriches the night TWA 800 crashed)".

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/1174183-photog-arrested-mia-7.html

    ReplyDelete
  151. SAY WHAT!? "My current content is SYNDICATED by USA Today..." SYNDICATED? And this was written in February of this year on FlyerTalk.

    Here's the full response to someone named Wally during a discussion about photographing in Airports:

    Wally,

    Just to set the record straight here ... I have specifically covered the TSA/DHS for Bloomberg, UPI, Time, The Boston Globe, Corbis. My current content is syndicated by USA Today and I am a contributing writer for a Conde Nast site, covering airlines and aviation security.

    As a journalist, I've also held hard card and pool credentials by some places you might have heard of, the United Nations, The US House & Senate , White House and Dept of Defense (as an embedded journalist
    for Bloomberg in Iraq).

    I am also not an activist. I cover the TSA/DHS from multiple angles. I am not always negative regarding the TSA, I cover them fairly and evenly, having actually written favourably about the TSA a number of times. My coverage of the TSA is extensive and consistent and sourced by other news outlets and I've appeared on Good Morning America, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, been quoted as an expert by the BBC, Guardian, NY Times, AP, Newsweek, etc etc.

    ... now lets reevaluate your comments about just having a blog ... and address the question I posed to you.


    Source:

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/1174183-photog-arrested-mia-8.html

    ReplyDelete
  152. SAY WHAT?! "My current content is syndicated by USA Today..." SYNDICATED? REALLY?

    Just to set the record straight here ... I have specifically covered the TSA/DHS for Bloomberg, UPI, Time, The Boston Globe, Corbis. My current content is syndicated by USA Today and I am a contributing writer for a Conde Nast site, covering airlines and aviation security.

    As a journalist, I've also held hard card and pool credentials by some places you might have heard of, the United Nations, The US House & Senate , White House and Dept of Defense (as an embedded journalist for Bloomberg in Iraq).

    I am also not an activist. I cover the TSA/DHS from multiple angles. I am not always negative regarding the TSA, I cover them fairly and evenly, having actually written favourably about the TSA a number of times. My coverage of the TSA is extensive and consistent and sourced by other news outlets and I've appeared on Good Morning America, CNN, Fox, MSNBC, been quoted as an expert by the BBC, Guardian, NY Times, AP, Newsweek, etc etc.

    ... now lets reevaluate your comments about just having a blog ... and address the question I posed to you.

    source:

    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/1174183-photog-arrested-mia-8.html

    ReplyDelete
  153. Whats even more amazing is that the same time Steven Frischling is dressing down these people with his lies on Flyertalk its just when FishFraud is starting to take off. He should have already had more than enough information to give him a clue that this kind of behavior just might not be so effective.

    ReplyDelete
  154. Frischling's claim about covering a riot in London in 2003....

    sportsshooter, 6/7/09, 12 Hour London Layover: "Back in 2003 I used a layover in London to get out and photograph a riot..."

    Frischling's photo (4th from top) of the Feb. 15, 2003 "riot" is here: http://www.upi.com/News_Photos/gallery/Six_Years_of_War_in_Iraq/1692/

    Wiki described this event in London as "almost without incident."

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/February_15,_2003_anti-war_protest

    ReplyDelete
  155. You can't argue with this logic:

    "I used to be an amature, butr now that I need film to eat and pay rent, and rely on that income 100% I am a pro shooter."

    http://groups.google.com/group/rec.photo.advanced/browse_thread/thread/a944826cb51022f5/29c00885d31e6010?q=steven+frischling+amature

    ReplyDelete
  156. CSI Bristol.

    "Anyway up here in Bristol I have been allowed inside crime scenes, I have had the opportunity to walk into an apartment with the cops called to a stabbing and get a photo of the perp standing on a blood covered floor with a bloody knife in her hand."

    Riiiiight.

    http://groups.google.com/group/bit.listserv.nppa-l/browse_thread/thread/c4177d8b32fd3a3e/cb3d30f2d0c49288?q=steven+frischling+bloody

    ReplyDelete
  157. "The first published photo I had was when I was 15 in my local paper of an Irish Activist talking to a high school class. This shot was the MailLeader in Valley Stream, NY."

    In the story about getting insulted making purchases at B&H:
    "I have been a full time photographer, 40 hours a week is full time, since I was 15"

    (http://groups.google.com/group/rec.photo.misc/browse_thread/thread/5a8c91ff01e7f1f5/37700c9f5a58b60c?q=Steven+Frischling)

    ^ And from 8:12 above:
    "I used to be an amature, butr now that I need film to eat and pay rent, and rely on that income 100% I am a pro shooter."

    So he was an "amature" before he was 15? Or was he shooting full time, 40 hours a week for free until he had to start paying rent? Or was he renting when he was 15? How does this work exactly Frischling?

    ReplyDelete
  158. Scroll down to the bottom of the http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/travel-safety-security/1174183-photog-arrested-mia-8.html thread. Looks like someone is trying to warn people on that message board.

    ReplyDelete
  159. Awww. On his flyertalk profile it says: " * Contact Info
    * About Me
    * Statistics
    * Friends
    * »

    Contact Info
    Send a Message to sefrischling

    * Send a private message to sefrischling
    * Send a message via email to sefrischling

    Instant Messaging
    Send an Instant Message to sefrischling Using...

    * AIM travelstrategist
    * Yahoo! travelstrategist
    * Skype™ travelstrategist

    Home Page
    http://www.flyingwithfish.com
    This Page
    http://www.flyertalk.com/forum/members/sefrischling.html

    About Me

    * About sefrischling

    Location
    Live: HVN -- Work: The World
    Program Affiliations
    BD-Gold ; BA-Silver -- DL-exPlat; US-exPlat; AZ-exFAC ; AF-exGold ;UA-ex1P; NW-exGold
    Interests
    Aviation Security ; Photography; Politics; My Kids; Dozens of L-1011s in the desert I want to rescue and put in my backyard
    Occupation
    Airline & Aerospace Social Media Consultant & Corporate Photographer

    * Signature

    Visit Flying With Fish @ BoardingArea.com!
    Follow Flying With Fish on Twitter

    Statistics
    Total Posts

    * Total Posts: 1,208
    * Posts Per Day: 0.64
    * Find all posts by sefrischling
    * Find all threads started by sefrischling

    General Information

    * Last Activity: Feb 14, 11 8:57 pm
    * Join Date: Jan 26, 06
    * Referrals: 0

    Friends
    sefrischling has not made any friends yet "

    ReplyDelete
  160. Sorry, didn't mean to post all of that, just the last two lines.

    ReplyDelete
  161. ^1:58, 5:08 and 9:25, thanks for the link. Now we know exactly when Frischling became an aviation security professional.

    "But then again ... what do I know ... covering aviation security is only something I've done professionally since September 15 2001 (I was busy with covering other things in lower Manhattan on Sept 11 and the following days, so I didn't get around the the airports for a few days)."

    ReplyDelete
  162. "My current content is syndicated by USA Today..."

    Just for s*#ts and giggles I searched the USA Today website for Steven Frischling. The five returns were 2 captions for AP/Bloomberg photos, two stories by USA Today staff reporters that mention his sorry self and one unrelated Frischling hit. Not a single byline for a story reference. That's some syndication deal!

    ReplyDelete
  163. Somewhere earlier in this blog, someone mentions what this syndication actually is. I can't remember, but I think he's claiming syndication because he's tangentially related to another blog (or something), that is syndicated, but I could have this entirely wrong. If someone can find it, that would confirm.

    ReplyDelete
  164. just a though about feeling sorry for him and the "what I do in the darkroom with my free time" photo. If Steven Frischling's lies were all old, and he wasn't doing it anymore, I could cut him some slack. But he's still doing it. The TSA interviews, the fact that he hasn't removed that stupid sticker from his website, or for that matter corrected any of his bullshit, or corrected alleged misdeeds on wedding contracts, or curbed his lashing out and libeling innocent people when confronted with lying, says to me he still deserves what he's getting from this blog.

    ReplyDelete
  165. ^ 11:31.
    This may have been the comment about the syndication on USA Today:

    First he does not "regularly break stories" about anything, since most of his content comes from press releases or other people's blogs. Second, he's not frequently quoted by "other" media, not since his history of fraud and fabrication has come to light. Third, his blog was not singled out for syndication by USA Today. All of BoardingArea.com's content is syndicated on USAToday.com, but you have to go out of your way to search for it. (And again, BoardingArea.com has no standards whatsoever. Congrats, Randy.)

    ReplyDelete
  166. Frischling is answering "travel related" questions here: http://www.quora.com/Steven-Frischling

    Have fun.

    ReplyDelete
  167. ^ 12:02

    My god, have you read what he's put on the bottom right corner of that page?

    "- Ranked #2 among Mashable.com’s “28 Awesome Aviation Pros on Twitter”
    - Ranked #4 by Klout.com for “Top Influencers about Travel and Tourism” on Twitter
    - Ranked #5 “Top Most Trusted Authority in Online Travel” out of 47 top industry insiders
    - Ranked #8 By Klout.com for "50 Most Influential Travel Companies Online"

    I wonder if those rankings are anything like the fake wedding photography rankings described above?

    As with everything Steven does, this seems to be yet another example of taking something with just a small kernel of truth to it (yes, his Klout scores would be high--he spends his entire life on twitter because he has nothing else to do) and turning it into a fraudulent tale of self-importance and accomplishment through lies of omission, embellishment, or downright misrepresentation.

    ReplyDelete
  168. I finally found one of Steven Frischling's awesome photos from his time documenting dangerous housing projects. The caption says that there is dried blood on a young hand holding a .38 caliber gun near a window. If you ask me, it looks like a staged photo using an off camera flash.

    http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/51097567/Getty-Images-News

    ReplyDelete
  169. I guess no one at mashable is reading this blog
    http://mashable.com/2009/11/12/aviation-twitter/

    ReplyDelete
  170. A great example of how Steven E. Frischling survives violent homocide situations and emerges from numerous riots with life threatening injuries.

    http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/813857/Getty-Images-Sport

    ReplyDelete
  171. Now we know he worked for the Brattleboro Reformer, a 10,000 circulation (tiny circulation, if you don't know) paper with one photographer/editor, which he called "Reporter / Chief Photographer"

    http://www.jigsaw.com/scid9400195/steven_e_frischling.xhtml

    What other paper did he work for?

    ReplyDelete
  172. he worked for the bristol press for 89 days.

    ReplyDelete
  173. The Bristol (CT) Press which had a whopping circ of 19,062 in 1996.

    ReplyDelete
  174. Hopefully, this link to another dangerous housing project riot photo will work.

    http://www.911pictures.com/photos_info.phtml?PID=911-335pd&category=unknown

    ReplyDelete
  175. Way too many comments - need a new thread - it takes too long to load all these pages on my iPhone

    ReplyDelete
  176. I believe that this photo,

    http://www.gettyimages.com/detail/813857/Getty-Images-Sport

    is the "award winner." I have seen it before.

    ReplyDelete
  177. NPPA-L, 8/9/97, Awards mean anything?"

    "I won an award for excellence in fire photography for a photo I did not enter, someone sent it in. It is a photo of an older firefighter who was about to retire, it was his 70th birthday, and the department said age 65 get out, then said "age 70 if you pass the physical", he did and could again, but
    was being forced to leave, this was his "last stand".

    The "heffer" photo looks like it was staged, but I guess it's possible he won more than one award. BTW, is that the Canadian spelling of "heifer?"

    http://groups.google.com/group/bit.listserv.nppa-l/browse_thread/thread/bb59896de8623392/8979fd4e10549b01?q=steven+frischling+entered

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  178. ^ 8:45am
    I thought the trooper was telling the cow to leave Frischling alone. The cow was probably bothering Frischling while he was trying to get an angle no one else had thought to get. Way to go Frischling!

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  179. Just watched On The Edge with Peter Lik. His photos were good, I guess, but I'm sure SF could have done the same three location shoot during a 12 hour layover on his way to Japan to cover the tsunami.

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  180. what happened to FishFraud blogmeister? It's gone so quiet. I'm dying for another fix of Steven Frischling escapades of adventure,danger and broken cameras.

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  181. Maybe Frischling finally raised enough money to make it go away?

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  182. This blog is losing momentum...

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  183. FishFraud has been going nonstop since November. It's only been one week off. You can still write to Randy, you can still locate and share Frischling's lies all over the internet. You can still write to all of the "blogs" hosting his bullshit.

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  184. Penelope is the female version of Steven Frischling

    http://www.hulu.com/watch/11931/saturday-night-live-penelope--traffic-school

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  185. What an intolerant lot! We have perused some 15+ years of bollocks postings to expose this fraud. Our research, because we are actual journos, has yielded marvelous results that have totally disabled the offending wanker on most photoj sites. Mind if we take some time off?
    Ingrates!

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  186. ^ 8:40.

    Fishdrawal is hitting some of us hard.

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  187. ^8:44

    Hilarious and true. I especially miss Steven coming back to drop a few bombs and then expose everything (or nothing) on his bully blog.

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  188. early fishfraud readers will remember a lull of about 4 weeks around the holidays, after which the blog came back stronger than ever. it seemed to go from being merely a nuisance to driving frischling to his twitter implosion. patience.

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  189. What say you readers? Shall we gather pitchforks and torches and storm the Castle Fish Fraud demanding new content? In the immortal words of Bluto: "Let's do it!"

    Kidding. Thanks for the entertainment. It's been an intense couple months and you guys deserve some time off.

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  190. Yesterday Steven Frischling wrote: I have not had the time over the past weeks to really dive into the stories I want to write about them, leaving me with a bag log of about 16 TSA stories to sift through."

    Speaking of a bag log...

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  191. gawd, in his latest boarding area posting he is surpised that Air India sells an old aircraft without a warranty - not only does he know zero about this industry, he goes on trying to act like an expert by pointing out some "discovery".

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  192. ^^^I know, for three whole people, it's been a lot of work.

    The vulnerable are the ones who don't catch on quick enough. That's what burns me the most when I think how he gets away with his "blog." For me, the greatest "infotainment" has been when experienced and knowledgeable travel, media, journalists and photographers or just very sharp observers in general have written in. They've presented some of the best evidence revealing his lying. Otherwise, I'd miss half of it.

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  193. "I did a long story on a housing project in Brooklyn NYC, on 300 roll, I was edited down to 7 shots, 3 froma sequence."

    Assuming there were 24 exposures on each roll, that would make his "keepers" a mind boggling 0.1%.


    http://groups.google.com/group/rec.photo.misc/browse_thread/thread/e658f9f281f5609d/acbd239c1a017c62?q=fishfotojr

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  194. Steven Frischling wrote in 1995 - " I am presently 20 years old. I also currently shoot freelance for The Associated Press in NYC (most of the time), so do not judge me by my age but by my work. "

    I am pretty sure that is what we have been doing here...just the three of us.

    http://groups.google.com/group/rec.photo.misc/browse_thread/thread/5a8c91ff01e7f1f5/049936b15e77c41c?lnk=gst&q=frischling#049936b15e77c41c

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  195. In 1996 Steven Frischling wrote - " I am only 20, but I stillmanaged to get in about 5 1/2 years of 40+hours a weeks of shooting. "


    I am a believer! How about you?

    http://groups.google.com/group/rec.photo.misc/browse_thread/thread/331b6365b2c3121b/002e7dca68d94190?lnk=gst&q=frischling#002e7dca68d94190

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  196. In 1995 Steven Frischling wrote: " APO is a lens designation given to lenses by Sigma. "

    Really? Who knew?
    And there I was thinking that it was a short label for apochromatic which according to dictionary.com is an adjective describing lenses "corrected for spherical aberration at two wavelengths or colors and for chromatic aberration at three wavelengths. "

    Wow, only Sygma lenses are made that way?
    What a freakin' genius!

    http://groups.google.com/group/rec.photo.misc/browse_thread/thread/7130dbafe7f585a6/391700e3d71fe6a6?lnk=gst&q=frischling#391700e3d71fe6a6

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