I'm not sure how many of y'all are following this, but a quick recap of what's been happening the past couple of weeks, specifically the past two days, in what is fast becoming a huge scandal by the media - primarily Reuters - in manipulation of images.
First, there was Qana - terrible images pointing to the "massacre" of 56 people, including 37 children, by Israeli warplanes. Many bloggers immediately noticed that there were a number of images that were more than a little suspicious, and started doing their research; the number of dead has since been revised to 28, including 16 children (still extremely terrible and sad), and many of the photos essentially proven to have been staged.
Partly because of this, people started paying closer attention to many of the images from the war, particularly from the photographers who reported from Qana. A photo submitted over the weekend by a photographer named Adnan Hajj was proven to be a fake: He overlayed smoke columns on a picture of Beirut to make the damage look far worse than it was. After many hours, Reuters finally pulled the photo, admitting that it was photoshopped. Since then, more photos Hajj has submitted were found to be photoshopped or otherwise manipulated: From Israeli planes shooting missiles, to scenes of death and destruction, to women crying about their destroyed homes. One example involved Hajj submitting photos from the same events weeks apart, each claiming that the destruction has "just" occured the night before.
Reuters has now pulled ALL of Hajj's pictures, and now refers to him as a "freelance" photographer instead of a Reuters photog, though his pictures were of the most prominent that Reuters has been putting on its newswire since the war began.
Meanwhile, other blogs are noting that the AP is using similar techniques - the same woman appears lamenting her home's destruction, on different days in different places. Add in the fact that many news outlets have admitted that Hezbollah won't let them report certain events or angles, and it is clear that Hezbollah is manipulating the media terribly in this war.
Only this time, bloggers are exposing what in the past would never be discovered.
The best places to go on Qana and Hajj are probably Charles Johnson (LGF) and Richard North (EU Referendum). Check them out.
The blogger aspect is true....but Im afraid this is NOTHING new
ReplyDeleteOnce again, we can thank the blogworld for exposing the bias of the liberal media against Israel. I would like to see the blogs take on the NY Times-whose coverage on all things Israel remains awful and outrageous.
ReplyDeleteThe worst thing was that even after the exposure, the picture was still up on Yahoo with no disclaimer.
ReplyDeleteSteve, (and Ezzie) if you'll pardon self-promotion I recently critiqued a couple of Times articles.
ReplyDeleteMediacrity does a somewhat regular job going after Erlanger and the crowd.
And Deja Vu just had a really good takedown of Thomas Friedman.
Finally even NPR is reporting on these lies- I wish the rest of the mainstream media would...
ReplyDeleteFinally even NPR is reporting on these lies- I wish the rest of the mainstream media would...
ReplyDeleteHuh? The story of slightlydarkersmokegate was in the Times earlier this week.
Only this time, bloggers are exposing what in the past would never be discovered.
ReplyDeleteTwo words: Jack Kelley.
DAG - Sad but true.
ReplyDeleteSteve - Amen!
SL - Yeah, I didn't get that. How could they leave that up!?
SD - Thanks!
Amishav - Heh. It gets glossed over as a minor incident involving one "freelancer".
DB - I'm unimpressed. I'm probably going to write a post on this later, so I won't expound here.