The astonishingly skewed reportage relating to the Middle East, and the reactions to it on the internet, reminds me of the reportage in the aftermath of 9/11 and how that changed the way a great many people understood how news is reported. The reaction to ideologically or commercially motivated massaging of facts in the mainstream media, which claimed to be objective reporting, is what more or less created the pundit blogosphere as we know it today.
The spotlight is once again on the reporters and networks who accept staged ‘photo-opportunities’ and rebroadcast them as factual ‘news’ (suitably edited). It is on the journalists who report every single Lebanese casually as ‘civilian’ even if they are members of Hezbollah (true but completely misleading). It is on the reporters operating within Lebanon under close Hezbollah direction and yet not adding a disclaimer to their reports pointing out this. It is on major western news agencies selling obviously photoshopped images of the aftermath of Israeli bombing.
Of course not every journalist allows themselves to be used in return for a ‘sexy’ story, as this July 30th article shows…
THIS is the picture that damns Hezbollah. It is one of several, smuggled from behind Lebanon’s battle lines, showing that Hezbollah is waging war amid suburbia. The images, obtained exclusively by the Sunday Herald Sun, show Hezbollah using high-density residential areas as launch pads for rockets and heavy-calibre weapons. Dressed in civilian clothing so they can quickly disappear, the militants carrying automatic assault rifles and ride in on trucks mounted with cannon. The photographs, from the Christian area of Wadi Chahrour in the east of Beirut, were taken by a visiting journalist and smuggled out by a friend.
So why is that not ‘front page’ news on the BBC or the hilariously named ‘Independent’? Could it be because it suggests that what the ‘Zionist entity’ has been claiming all along might actually be true?
To quote the movie Network, “We’re mad as hell and we’re not going to take it any more”. We can fact-check your ass.
Thats totally disgraceful.
I hope Reuters gets its ass kicked for this one.
Submitted to Reuters Staff:
“I fancy myself a rather adept PhotoShop user. My services are pretty cheap and using me here in the States would likely not arouse the suspicion of using Mid East vendors.
Since integrity is obviously no longer an issue with Reuters, feel free to drop me a line and we can discuss terms.”
Reuters has issued a ‘kill’ of the ‘shoped photo… and they also have apparently found the original. I think it’s time to question management as to if it’s their policy to hire/contract journalist or activists.
Seems they hired a better artist 🙂
The fact that the H. can opertate in Christian East Beirut shows how clearly the Christians have been defeated.
I remember some years ago the Gereral in command of what was left the Lebanese army (as opposed to one of the Chrisitian militia groups) led some resistance to the Syrians – but he was outgunned, unsupported by the West, and defeated.
Dancing “babes” are no substitute for armed force and the will to use it.
I doubt the Chrisitians have a future in Lebanon, sucking up to the H. (for example by some Chrisitians saying how much they hate the Jews) will not help them in the long term – any more than it helped the Christian population of Gaza or the “West Bank”.
Most of the Christian Arabs in these areas are either dead or long gone – just a few are left (to be put on the media from time to time in order to say how much they hate Israel – rather than the forces that have almost wiped out their communities).
I think this was more an illustration of the danger of hiring stringers than editorial malice on the part of Reuters…
They made a mistake, it was corrected. Hopefully if they keep getting them pointed out they’ll pay more careful attention or revise the way they gather news in these regions.
Regards
The Dude
I never thought it was editorial ‘malice’ from Reuters, more a case of wilful negligence brought on by wanting to see sensational news (which after all sells better).
Take a look at the image in question… it is so obviously photoshopped (i.e. badly) that for that to have made the cut suggests the bar is set EXTREMELY low. Yes I realise Reuters see a huge number of images per day but that really is no excuse to let yourself be used as a propaganda adjunct of Hezbollah.
http://editorial.gettyimages.com/source/search/details_pop.aspx?iid=71595544&cdi=0
Another media lie. Every one knows that rockets dont fall in same site. And they dont even have enough fuel to fall with engine on.
lckylucky, those look like outgoing rockets to me!
Yes they are. You can even see the back tip of one. Now compare with the text.
I concur and have written to Getty images for ‘clarification’. My take is that is a picture of outgoing Hezbollah rockets. I will keep you posted if I get a reply.
Thanks Perry.
Sorry, I didn’t mean to imply you did. Although reading through comments on other sites, people seem all too willing to attribute it to this.
I’m sufficiently cynical, though, that I tend not to think any level of incompetence is out of reach of any sufficiently bureaucratic organisation!
Sigh…. So much for blockquote, damn open source browsers!
Editor: no worries, I figured out what you intended and added them for you
There are two and only two possible conclusions about AlReuters and the Haji photo: !. They are knowingly and deliberately accepting falsified images that serve their propaganda goal; or 2. The Reuters editor/ fact checking process is so inept and incapable that they were unable to spot an obvious piece of agitprop fakery.
Either choice is sufficient to eliminate all faith in further
information provided from AlReuters.
Gray One:
There is a third possibility, a ‘tweener’. That is that the normal fact-checking is subliminally suspended when one sees something he’s predisposed to believe already. I don’t believe the TXANG forgeries were done deliberately by See BS staff; they were just too good to check. Something similar might be going on here.
The lesson that news organizations should take away from this sort of debacle is that submissions should be vetted by several diferent judges, deliberately selected to have differing biases. When a story purporting to make a Republican look bad comes along, you’d better have an in-house Repo to ask tough questions before you air the piece. When a picture depicting the extent of IAF strikes comes across your desk, running it past a Zionist (someone who supports the existence of the state of Israel) is a good idea. If you don’t have someone representing those positions within your organization, you’re vulnerable to becoming an echolocation chamber.
Monster, I’d not call that anything but a special case of my second option, i.e. “inept and incapable” editor/fact check process. The reasons for their ineptitude could be many and varied, but to me at least , AlReuters cannot escape being either deliberately culpable or incompetently culpable . They are trying to pass this off as a mistake solely on the part of the Haji. Reuters needs to be faced with their own failure to control their process. After all, they ARE part of the big MSM multiple layer editor and fact checking machine. What would the MSM response be to bloggers making such an inexcusable error ?
Gray One