Slashdot Mirror
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."
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SVM, ERGO MONSTRO.
...In my books is a worse crime than bombing buildings and/or killing families. priorities people.
God was my co-pilot, but then we crashed and I was forced to eat him.
How about them, how long would they last if they didn't 99% report the official slant? How about the admitted-to deliberate planting of completely bogus stories the pentagon does? How do you seperate those out? How about this admin paying off newsies to shill for new policies or legislation that want passed, and they don't disclose it? And industry doing that as well? That phenomenon is called "fake news" and you can google for it, it's a big and an ongoing reality with the stuff people in the US are spoon fed in order to influence opinion. If you watch any of the major broadcasts, you are fed FAKE news almost daily. It's not to transmit data, it is DESIGNED to influence opinion and damn if all the big networks and dead tree rags aren't in on it, big time.
And my fav, makes me want to chunk a brick through the Tv at the smiling talking heads, is this -> every human being that isn't in the "coalition of the willing" in the mideast or isn't a zionist is automatically a "terrorist" if they get wasted by one of "our guys". Why is that again? Where do you draw the line, random soldier A drops a 500 lb bomb from an airplane, takes out two enemy soldiers and 15 civvies, and is caught on tape laughing and giggling about it to boot. Press release says "unfortunate collateral damage" for the 897th time. Random soldier B explodes himself in a suicide vest, takes out 2 enemy invaders and 15 civvies. His org issues a press release that says to stay away from the enemy and don't be a collaborator, closeness implies collaboration, so too bad if you are helping the invaders, shoulda been someplace else. Who's a "brave soldier" and a "terrorist" again? Looks like the same crap to me! Whatever technoplogy you use is *irrelevant* once you start killing people and accept the fact that you will go ahead and do it no matter how many "innocents" you waste in the process. BOTH examples are terrorism. You have ZERO moral high ground in this situation picking soldier A or B as being "good or bad", they both just *suck*.
Word useage, demonization is common, all down through history to inflame the populations (filthy Indian! Sneaky jap! Damn commie gook! muslim terrorist!, etc) it goes a lot further than just "them durn lebuhneez gots to be hizbollahs so we can'tz trust 'em!" You are going to have to take several long steps back and drop back into analytical neutrality before you can make blanket statement like that, and then you wouldn't do it, because you would see it's ludicrous.
For sure the photos were altered..just like the DOD is still lying about a lot of the "facts" about 9-11, just like the "coalition of the righteous" lied about iraqi WMD, just like they ignore that israel has never signed onto the non proliferation treaty and by our own laws we shouldn't be trading with them or transferring any military equipment. And last I knew, we don't have a formal mutual defense pact with them(they aren't in NATO for instance). And last I knew, going to war under false pretenses by lying qualified as an act of treason by those who told the lies to get us there.
When I start hearing the words "and in todays news, the treasonus but still unmimpeached administration now says"..then I might believe that "our" media is truly unbiased or at least willing to call it like it is. Until then, one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter is another man's "I sure wish both them drunk with power fundy idiots would off themselves and leave the rest of us alone".
The bad photoshop work isn't really the story here. It's just what got him fired from Reuters. In one example and yet another, this photographer is acting more as a Hezbollah propaganda operative than a news photographer. He was responsible for one of the most used photos from Qana with the dead child being held up, and as recently as yesterday had a picture on Page 1 of the NYT of an injured Lebonese civilian. He's basically the Peter Parker of Lebanon. It's wouldn't be hard to get the best photos if you were working with the terrorists who control the region!
Uh-huh. And exactly what's your basis for deciding he's "working with the terrorists" rather than being a freelancer trying to juice up his photos? The only possible explanation for the extra-flares job is to make a prettier picture. What dreadful calumny do you think it embodies? That the Israeli air force can - shudder - fire three missiles at once?
The Beirut shots being brandished by Powerline are either the same thing or - just like the news reports say - the area was bombed more than once in nine days.
In fact, it's very hard to see that either picture is actually "staged". The first is a long shot and has lots of people and smoke still rising in the background; the second has an unidentified woman walking past the wrecked building on a clear day.
Is it the fact that there's a person in it? Dude, every photographer in that line of work knows to get people in the picture: it makes the image more compelling and gives you scale. Check out the descriptions of agency photographs: there's a lot of "woman walking past [insert newsworthy structure here]".
Assuming that the child in Qana was actually dead, there's nothing wrong with that newsphoto. It's a powerful image, which is why so many media used it. Just like the pictures of Saddam's statue being toppled in Firdus square were powerful. Only those were arguably more misleading.
"You can't say that civilian areas are legit military targets because a soldier may be in the area."
Correct, and by the same logic you cannot say a village, apartment block, ambulance, airport, mobile phone tower,...is a military target because a "terrorist" may be in the area or may use the infrastructure. Both sides are guilty of horrendous actions and the sooner the US acknowlages this fact the sooner we can stop this "war on terror" nonesense.
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.