They do. They have photos every time a decent size ship comes back in.
Yes, actually news coverage of Navy ships coming back into port after a deployment is quite common. In communities that have Navy bases, these ships coming back home is a big deal. So there will generally be some official Navy photographers, some local news, and of course just civilians/families with their own still and video cameras. If the ship is notable for some reason, maybe it was involved in some notable incident while it was deployed, then there might even be national news cameras there for the homecoming.
God conspiracy theorists are annoying.
(Just to elaborate, because I like Eric. There’s enough problematic/illegal stuff happening in the world to worry about and work to fix that is abundantly and factually documented and true, without trying to turn every little fiddly fortuitious or coincidental thing that happens in the world into it’s own little mini conspiracy. It makes the world and life exhausting, cynical and ugly, for very little gain. It usually also reflects a lack of very basic research on the part of the conspiracy theorists, who assume things are unusual or unlikely or fishy when there’s easy to find evidence that they’re not, like the common presence of photographers to record ship homecomings).
A better more believable conspiracy theory is that the woman won the lottery legitimately, i.e. random chance, and then someone decided to make a big deal out of it for PR purposes.
I assume it went like this:
Standard raffle for first kiss. Gaeta buys 50 tickets, and some of her buddies buy some extra tickets on her behalf. Gaeta wins the raffle.
At this point, the captain has to inform the Navy who won the first kiss thing. Preparations have to be made to make sure Snell is in place when the ship comes in. It’s just basic, minor event planning, same as for any other homecoming.
Somewhere between that point and literally when Gaeta steps off the boat (one of the early articles indicated th press present had no idea until the last minute), word gets out that it’s going to be two women doing the kiss. Maybe Gaeta or Snell posted it to facebook, maybe the staffer at the navy tipped off a buddy, maybe someone literally just sitting dockside at the ceremony, there to cover the event as per usual for the Gazette Tribune Farmers Picayune, puts two and two together when they see the names/see the people lined up.
The thing is, because of the way news works nowadays, that’s all you need. Youtube, Facebook, Daily Kos/Free Republic, Huffpo, Gawker, Perez Hilton, whatever. One uploaded video, one emailed picture, we’ve already established some press would likely already be there, regardless, the thing goes viral. Two chicks kissing+ Post DADT Military, the story writes itself for any editor or blogger. No one has to “orchestrate” or “set up” anything.
Here’s the article I read: http://www.washingtonpost.com/national/2-women-share-1st-kiss-after-us-navy-ship-returns-to-virginia-a-1st-since-repeal-of-ban/2011/12/21/gIQA3aaU9O_story.html
Textblocks 5 and 6, in particular.