One way to answer this question is to ask why would a mockingbird media photographer would fake a photo that became a key piece of evidence to show the World that #Trump just got shot at?
Discussion
I dunno man.
I don't think a photo is necessary for proof from their perspective. Having a suspicious guy there to provide supposed corroboration probably just undermines their story in the end, just like you're saying.
So why would they even bother?
Either way, a photo doesn't confirm or deny a thing.
But I agree that it's sus. I just don't particularly care one way or the other.
I mean this photo was a major element to support the mockingbird narrative. Maybe it doesn’t matter from your perspective but it definitely mattered from theirs. They knew many people will be inclined to suspect a false flag. Tell people that the #Trump assassination was staged and see what they’ll respond. 80% will refer to the Doug Mills photo to support that it wasn’t staged.
Also, in the early days after the shooting, the staged hypothesis was being refuted by saying that it would have been too dangerous of a stunt for the shooter to try to aim at #Trump ear. I don’t recall anybody floating the idea that maybe the stunt wasn’t so risky because nobody had shot at him. You see, like many people I had seen the photo even before seeing the video. Everybody has seen this photo and from this point on, it’s hard to imagine that Trump wasn’t shot at. I myself didn’t doubt in the first days that the he had been shot at, then I started being more skeptical by thinking that maybe this photo had been tampered with until it could be proven. So I disagree that this photo didn’t play a major role in making the mockingbird narrative credible. For me, if this photo wasn’t fake I could’t confidently claim that it was a stunt because it would been indeed too risky.