Reuters Admits, Pulls Doctored Photos

fragmentate points to a post on PopPhoto which says "Reuters pulled a photograph of burning buildings in Beirut yesterday after a post on the Little Green Footballs blog outed it as digitally manipulated. The photo, filed on Saturday by freelance photographer Adnan Hajj, ran with the caption "Smoke billows from burning buildings destroyed during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's suburbs." Fragmentate adds "Another image from the same photographer was found to have been doctored. Whether you're a CNN fan, or a FoxNEWS fan, you have to wonder how much of what we see is fake, or exaggerated."

Comments

Fake or exaggerated?

[Jhon]

Whether you're a CNN fan, or a FoxNEWS fan, you have to wonder how much of what we see is fake, or exaggerated.

Fake? I'm fairly sure these are the exceptions rather than the rule -- but exaggerated?

Virtually EVERY news report from ANY source is either exaggerated (to reflect the reporters bias) or softened (to likewise reflect the reporters bias). Add to this equation the pressure for ratings and simple stories can quickly and easily become "sensational".

True 'unbiased' reporting is a myth.

If you want an idea of whats going on, read/view as much as you can -- from as many sources as you can. From Fox to CNN, from the far left Pacifica to convervative talk radio. From The Standard to the NY Times. From LGF to DailyKos. My limited experience has suggested to me that the 'real story' is usually somewhere in the middle.

That said, I'd like to address this statement from TFA:

Hajj, who has freelanced for Reuters since 1993 and has been suspended pending an internal inquiry, "denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under," according to the Reuters statement.

(sneeze)BULLSHIT(/sneeze)

Bad lighting conditions? Remove dust? Come on. Last I checked CRT and LCDs glow... unless he was working from memory alone without the aid of a monitor, he's a flipping liar.

When you have a hammer the world looks like a nail

[Crashmarik]

You use reporters with a political agenda, shared by the editors, it should come as no surprise that this is what you get. The international press does not like Israel. They especially seem offended that the country hasn't just given up and died yet.

This is no way confined to Reuters. Here is an excerpt from yesterdays reliable sources between howard kurtz and Thomas ricks of the washington post.

Reliable sources

THOMAS RICKS, REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think it will be. But I think civilian casualties are also part of the battlefield play for both sides here. One of the things that is going on, according to some military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon. KURTZ: Hold on, you're suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of it's fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here? RICKS: Yes, that's what military analysts have told me. KURTZ: That's an extraordinary testament to the notion that having people on your own side killed actually works to your benefit in that nobody wants to see your own citizens killed but it works to your benefit in terms of the battle of perceptions here. RICKS: Exactly. It helps you with the moral high ground problem, because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well.

This fellow Ricks is willing to spout crap like the above on national television. The Khmer Rougue could make a convincing case for the moral high ground against Hezbollah. Israel a country that goes to the trouble of trying to get civilians away from targets before they are hit does not.

Re:Bias..

[ackthpt]

I think you're being more than a little paranoid with what you think you 'see between the lines'. Not everybody has some kind of insidius agenda, whether they be freelance photographers or /. posters.

Listen to the news and take note: When the fighters are contrary to the wishes of US foreign policy, they are insurgeants or even terrorists. When they are for the wishes of US foreign policy, they are soldiers or even patriots. (This brought to light during the Reagan presidency regarding the actions in Nicaragua, it's the same these days.) News tends to colour Hezbollah and Hamas as organisations with dirty, bloody even, hands. The problem is, both sides are about as bad, rather like the tit-for-tat vengeance killing in Iraq between sunnis and shites. It's were everything becomes shades of gray and the news, often in line with Whitehouse wishes (because the Whitehouse feeds much of the media), is coloured in.