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Linking to liberal media is a waste anymore

passin thru

Well-known member
Michelle Malkin breaks down the Reuters photo controversy and says it points to the larger issue of how the mainstream media is covering the war on terror these days. She says the Reuters situation is not an isolated case.

The Reuterization of war journalism
By Michelle Malkin
Wednesday, August 9, 2006

"What's the big deal over a little faked smoke?" That seems to be the prevailing attitude among media pooh-bahs irked by bloggers who exposed the crude Photoshoppery of a Reuters photographer over the weekend. The cameraman, prolific Lebanese stringer and chronicler of Hizballah Adnan Hajj, was fired.

But the black cloud of truth-distorting photo fakery, jihadi-sympathizing news staging and sloppy photo captioning in the Middle East hangs over American journalism thicker than anything Hajj could conjure.

Charles Johnson of littlegreenfootballs.com, who was instrumental in debunking the faked National Guard memos that disgraced CBS News and Dan Rather during the 2004 presidential election, led an Army of Myth Busters who exposed Hajj's digital cloning of smoke clouds over a Beirut bombing scene. The Jawa Report (mypetjawa.mu.nu), another War on Terror blog, dissected a second Hajj photo of cloned flare smoke in an image of an Israeli F-16 fighter jet over the skies of Lebanon. A Reuters caption falsely identified the manipulated flares as "missiles during an air strike on Nabatiyeh." My video news site, HotAir.com, continues to track the latest developments.

The Internet graphics expert brigade zeroed in on an obvious Photoshop technique used in the billows of Hajj's smoke known as the clone stamp tool. It's also known as the rubber stamp tool, fitting for a news service that seems to have made its mark rubber stamping pro-Hizballah propaganda. Indeed, the day after Reuters 'fessed up to the doctored photos, the wire service falsely blamed the Israeli Defense Forces for bombing a funeral procession, according to Arutz Sheva.

Hajj provided perhaps the lamest excuse in photojournalistic history for his image manipulation since Dan Rather's "fake but accurate" rationalization -- telling his bosses that he was quote trying to "remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under." Among his many other dubious shots: several Hizballah-embedded images, an artfully burning Koran and an iconic photo of a dead child paraded around Qana by unknown handlers.

Watch now for braying, rationalizing and messenger-shooting from the journalistic elite. You will hear them complain about the bloodthirsty blog mob. You will see MSM editors rally around Reuters and dismiss this debacle as a lone event. Adnan Hajj, the new international Jayson Blair/Mike Barnicle/Janet Cooke/Mary Mapes/Walter Duranty, will end up with a book contract and a job at Al Jazeera. Media veterans will hope that their professional apathy will snuff out probing questions like baking soda on a pan fire. After all, it's "old news" already.

In a sense, they are right. Whether from sloppiness, laziness, incompetence or ideological bias, American journalists have played dupes or worse to jihadi propagandists for decades. Just a few weeks ago, a New York Times photography editor raved over her photographer Joao Silva's image of an al-Sadr army sniper posing in a window firing at U.S. troops. "Incredible courage," she panted. It's not clear whether she was talking about the photographer or the terrorist. The Associated Press has failed to respond to my repeated questions about one of its Iraqi stringers, Bilal Hussein, who was detained by the U.S. military in April after being captured in a Ramadi building with a cache of weapons, according to my sources. Hussein was part of a Pulitzer Prize-winning AP photography team.

From the fake "massacre" in Jenin, to the false accusations against Israel in the shooting of Palestinian boy Mohammed al-Dura, to the dissemination of "Pallywood" terrorist video productions, to the false labeling of executed Shiite fishermen in a Haditha sports stadium as victims of U.S. Marines, the Reuterization of war journalism goes far beyond Reuters.

Reuters can kill a few pictures, but it does not kill persistent doubts about the American media's ability to cover this war through anything but a distorted lens. The blogosphere can help clear the bogus smoke. Only the Old Media itself can stamp out the toxic fire.

http://www.townhall.com/columnists/MichelleMalkin/2006/08/09/the_reuterization_of_war_journalism



More problems : http://drinkingfromhome.blogspot.com/2006/08/extreme-makeover-beirut-edition.html

http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008766

http://michellemalkin.com/archives/005687.htm
 

Liberty Belle

Well-known member
Here's an interesting story on the same subject. Click on the link below if you want to see the picture they altered.

Reuters admits altering Beirut photo

Reuters withdraws photograph of Beirut after Air Force attack after US blogs, photographers point out 'blatant evidence of manipulation.' Reuters' head of PR says in response, 'Reuters has suspended photographer until investigations are completed into changes made to photograph.' Photographer who sent altered image is same Reuters photographer behind many of images from Qana, which have also been subject of suspicions for being staged
Yaakov Lappin

A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage.

The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors.
Reuters withdraws doctored image
In the message, Reuters said that "photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvience."
Reuters' head of PR Moira Whittle said in response: "Reuters has suspended a photographer until investigations are completed into changes made to a photograph showing smoke billowing from buildings following an air strike on Beirut. Reuters takes such matters extremely seriously as it is strictly against company editorial policy to alter pictures."
"As soon as the allegation came to light, the photograph, filed on Saturday 5 August, was removed from the file and a replacement, showing the same scene, was sent. The explanation for the removal was the improper use of photo-editing software," she added.

Earlier, Charles Johnson, of the Little Green Footballs blog , which has exposed a previous attempt at fraud by a major American news corporation, wrote : "This Reuters photograph shows blatant evidence of manipulation. Notice the repeating patterns in the smoke; this is almost certainly caused by using the Photoshop “clone” tool to add more smoke to the image."

Johnson added: "Smoke simply does not contain repeating symmetrical patterns like this, and you can see the repetition in both plumes of smoke. There’s really no question about it."

Speaking to Ynetnews, Johnson said: "This has to cast doubt not only on the photographer who did the alterations, but on Reuters' entire review process. If they could let such an obvious fake get through to publication, how many more faked or 'enhanced' photos have not been caught?"

A series of close ups are then posted on the blog, showing that "it’s not only the plumes of smoke that were 'enhanced.' There are also cloned buildings." The close ups do appear to show exact replicas of buildings appearing next to one another in the photograph.

The Sports Shooter web forum , used by professional photographers, also examined the photo, with many users concluding that the image has been doctored.
'Looks so obviously doctored'

"I'll second the cloned smoke...but it looks so obvious that I don't know how the photographer could have gotten away with it," wrote one user.

After further research, Johnson posted a photograph he says is the original image taken before distortions were made, showing much lighter smoke rising.

Other blogs have also analyzed the photographs, and reached similar conclusions, such as Left & Right , which states: "The photo has been doctored, quite badly."

The author of the Ace of Spades blog wrote: "Even I can see the very suspicious "clonings" of picture elements here. And I'm an idiot."
The Hot Air blog also looked at the photo, describing the image as "the worst Photoshop I have ever seen."

Adnan Hajj, the photographer who sent the altered image, was also the Reuters photographer behind many of the images from Qana – which have also been the subject of suspicions for being staged.

"A photographer who would blatantly falsify an entire 'news' image would certainly not be above posing and staging photographs of rescue workers," Johnson concluded.

8.06.06
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3286966,00.html
 

Liberty Belle

Well-known member
If you want to see the real story, click on this link and you'll see some REALLY interesting pictures. Makes you want to believe everything in the liberal media, doesn't it?

http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/08/qana-directors-cut.html

And here's some more good stuff:
http://www.modernconservative.com/forums_metablog/
 

Cal

Well-known member
I think Reuters and Disagreeable are on the same side.

And until people on this board see muslims as people and not terrorists, they will keep coming. We can't kill everyone who hates America. The more people we kill, the more hate us. Education and respect for other people's views and customs are keys to protecting this country. And along with that Bush should have been protecting our southern borders, but nooooo. He didn't want to stop the flow of cheap labor for his big business buddies.
 
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