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Winning the propoganda war
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| Shakka |
I mean seriously. Maybe we just have more talented photochoppers here. Damage estimates from the Qana incident were already more than halved. Then all of this juice.
Story 1
This is particularly troubling since they even had details from the get go that said 1/3 of the dead were children under 13.
| quote: | By Lin Noueihed
BEIRUT (Reuters) - An Israeli air raid killed more than 40 people in a Lebanese village on Monday, Lebanon's prime minister said, and other air strikes killed 19 after diplomatic efforts to end the 27-day-old war stalled.
"An hour ago, a horrific massacre took place in Houla village as a result of the intentional Israeli bombardment that resulted in more than 40 martyrs," Prime Minister Fouad Siniora told an emergency Arab foreign ministers meeting in Beirut. |
And then later...
uh, guys?
| quote: | | The Lebanese prime minister says only one person died in an Israeli air raid on the southern village of Houla, lowering the death toll from 40. |
And then this. I know one (if not more) of these pics was pointed out in another thread.
Riiiight. Images can be seen via the link.
| quote: |
Reuters admits to more image manipulation
News organization withdraws photograph of Israeli fighter jet, admits image was doctored, fires photographer. Reuters pledges 'tighter editing procedure for images of the Middle East conflict'
Yaakov Lappin
Reuters has withdrawn a second photograph and admitted that the image was doctored, following the emergence of new suspicions against images provided by the news organization. On Sunday, Reuters admitted that one of its photographers, Adnan Hajj, used software to distort an image of smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut in order to create the effect of more smoke and damage.
The latest image to face doubts is a photograph of an Israeli F-16 fighter jet over the skies of Lebanon, seen in the image firing off "missiles during an air strike on Nabatiyeh," according to the image's accompanying text provided by Reuters.
Reuters has recalled all photos by Adnan Hajj
Rusty Shackleford, owner of the My Pet Jawa web log , noted that the warplane in the picture is actually firing defensive flares aimed at dealing with anti-aircraft missiles.
Caught Red Handed
Reuters admits altering Beirut photo / Yaakov Lappin
Reuters withdraws photograph of Beirut after Air Force attack after US blogs, photographers point out 'blatant evidence of manipulation.'
Full Story
In addition, Shackelford says the flares have been replicated by Reuters, giving the impression that the jet was firing many "missiles," thereby distortion the image.
"The F-16 in the photo is not firing missiles, but is rather dropping chaffe or flares designed to be a decoy for surface to air missiles. However, a close up (of) what Hajj calls "missiles" reveals that only one flare has been dropped. The other two "flares" are simply copies of the original," Shackleford wrote. "But what about the 'bombs' in the photo? Here is a close up of them. Notice anything? That's right. The top and bottom "bomb" are the same."
Another manipuated Reuters image
Following the accusations, Reuters conceded that a second image it provided had been manipulated, and released a statement saying it had recalled all photos by Hajj. "Reuters has withdrawn from its database all photographs taken by Beirut-based freelance Adnan Hajj after establishing that he had altered two images since the start of the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese Hizbullah group," the statement said.
The news outlet said that it discovered "in the last 24 hours that he (Hajj) altered two photographs since the beginning of the conflict between Israel and the Lebanese group Hizbullah," Reuters added.
“There is no graver breach of Reuters standards for our photographers than the deliberate manipulation of an image", Reuters' statement quoted Tom Szlukovenyi, Reuters Global Picture Editor, as saying.
'Tighter editing needed'
Reuters also said it would apply "tighter editing procedure for images of the Middle East conflict to ensure that no photograph from the region would be transmitted to subscribers without review by the most senior editor on the Reuters Global Pictures Desk."
"Reuters terminated its relationship with Hajj on Sunday... An immediate enquiry began into Hajj’s other work," the statement said.
Hajj had provided Reuters with several images from the Lebanese village of Qana, many of which have also been suspected of being staged .
Other Reuters images have been called into question by blogs in the United States.
A reader of the Power Line blog , Robert Opalecky, wrote: "I don't know if this has been brought to anyone's attention yet, but in a quick search of the authenticated Reuters photographs attributed to Adnan Hajj, I found the following two."
The first Reuters image of July 24
"One is from July 24 of a bombed out area in Beirut, with a clearly identifiable building in a prominent part of the shot. The second is of the exact same area, same buildings, same condition, with a woman walking past "a building flattened during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's suburbs August 5, 2006," he wrote.
Reuters' second 'Beirut attack' photo, dated August 5
A film released on the YouTube video sharing website compares the two images, and appears to show striking similarities between the photograph used by Reuters on both July 24 and August 5. |
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| MisterOpus1 |
Disturbing, though I guess I shouldn't be too surprised. It's one of the reasons why I stear clear more often than not of Middle East crap. I'll take a stab here and there, but it really is hard to decifer at times truth from fiction when it comes to Israel and it's Middle Eastern enemies.
It's just a ing mess that I don't think will ever get peacefully resolved. The question I guess that irks at me is how involved the U.S. will be in the mess. Perhaps that's a bit selfish and isolationist, but honestly I can't stand this ing conflict there anymore. People fire on Israel without regard to the innocent, they of course have a right to defend themselves, and consequently they turn around and bomb the out of their enemies without mercy and without regard. It's just a ing mess. |
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| George Smiley |
Is it any different to sources in America saying 20,000 people were thought dead in the World Trade Centre? How do you know it's not simply an estimate? (After all, it's not like they continued to push the figures when they did know how many people had died) Of course it could very well be a deliberate attempt to sway people's opinions of the conflict.
As for the photographer, not sure what his motivations were (probably more to do with his ego than any political beliefs) Not really sure why he felt the need to add more smoke to that picture but you must be blind if you can't see it's been doctored!!! I could doa better job than that! As for the plane, I think he's just a little down that he's not managed to shoot any good action shots (it's not like Israeli jets haven't been firing missiles into Lebanon is it?!)
One thing you have to realise about all media is that in one way or another they all attempt to sensationalise their stories, quite simply to make them more interesting. I would guess that the vast majority of the time for the big media companies, when they do this it's not because they're pushing an agenda, but more that they're pushing for extra customers... |
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| jonSun |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
Is it any different to sources in America saying 20,000 people were thought dead in the World Trade Centre? How do you know it's not simply an estimate? (After all, it's not like they continued to push the figures when they did know how many people had died) Of course it could very well be a deliberate attempt to sway people's opinions of the conflict.
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I was thinking the same thing. And also communication in Lebanon is right now cause the IDF bombed everything. |
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| trancaholic |
More irregularities here:
http://drinkingfromhome.blogspot.co...ut-edition.html
To me all of this obvious doctoring and manipulation is just another case of Middle Eastern Arabs shooting themselves in the foot. The poor Labanese civilians already had the sympathy of the majority of people in the outside world, yet with stories such as these, people will think twice before donating money to helping the victims or participate in peace-rallies. |
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| George Smiley |
| quote: | Originally posted by trancaholic
More irregularities here:
http://drinkingfromhome.blogspot.co...ut-edition.html
To me all of this obvious doctoring and manipulation is just another case of Middle Eastern Arabs shooting themselves in the foot. The poor Labanese civilians already had the sympathy of the majority of people in the outside world, yet with stories such as these, people will think twice before donating money to helping the victims or participate in peace-rallies. |
Everytime England play abroad, every British newspaper and freelance photographer get groups of England fans to cheer for England while they pose for the cameras. These pictures then appear next to the latest headlines about trouble kicking off between the hooligans. I'm gonna stick my neck out and say every media company that has ever existed has been guilty of this and to portray this as some kind of Arab phenomena is somewhat unfair, particularly when the two companies that have been mentioned on this thread are Routers and the BBC. I would imagine most photojournalists out there are looking for 'cool' action shots, and none will be above bending the rules slightly... |
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| trancaholic |
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
Everytime England play abroad, every British newspaper and freelance photographer get groups of England fans to cheer for England while they pose for the cameras. These pictures then appear next to the latest headlines about trouble kicking off between the hooligans. |
While misleading (and I agree that this sort of unrelated-picture-with-news manipulation is very widespread), I think that there is quite a leap to literally manipulating pictures, writing captions that are outright lies, and exaggerating death tolls. (Btw. how much faith can be put into the "23 being children" bits of info that accompanies Lebanese death tolls? If they don't even have the bodies (for an accurate count), how can they know how many were children?)
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
I'm gonna stick my neck out and say every media company that has ever existed has been guilty of this and to portray this as some kind of Arab phenomena is somewhat unfair, |
I wasn't refering to media lies as being an Arab phenomenon. I was refering to the propensity to shoot oneself in the foot, as being an often observed trait of Arabs.
| quote: | Originally posted by George Smiley
particularly when the two companies that have been mentioned on this thread are Routers and the BBC. |
Clearly, each has egg on its face. It doesn't make the actions of the photographer(s) and officials on the ground in Lebanon any less stupid, though. |
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| stevieboy32808 |
psst, Shakka covered that in his first post.
And about the photoshopping that doesn't surprise me anymore much like the U.S. manipulates the news here in the states by twisting their stories. |
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| MisterOpus1 |
An interesting perspective on the matter, and it puts such fabrications in a different light:
| quote: | Exploiting the Reuters incident
It is indisputably wrong for a media outlet to alter photographs or other information so as to falsely represent what is being reported. That is beyond dispute. Yet for three straight days now (and still going strong), the right-wing blogosphere has been wallowing in a self-celebratory swarm because two photographs taken in Lebanon and published by Reuters were found to have been altered using Photoshop by the freelance photographer who submitted them. Rush Limbaugh has now joined the party, decreeing that "Reuters ought to be investigated." (The frequency with which Bush supporters call for media organizations to be investigated because of what they report is itself notable.)
Given the intensity and duration of the blogospheric mob scene fueled by the Reuters discovery, one would think that this event demonstrates some sort of important point beyond the particular photographer's poor judgment or deliberate deceit. But it is difficult to see what the point might be, to put it mildly.
The alterations made to the original Beirut photograph appear to have increased the amount of smoke one sees in the photo, taken after a Beirut bombing raid, but the amount of smoke in the original unaltered photograph is itself quite substantial. Israel really is bombing Lebanon; buildings really are being destroyed; many Lebanese civilians really are dying; and nobody who is serious disputes any of that.
These excited bloggers seem to be using the Reuters incident to try to "prove" that the dreaded "mainstream media" -- and Reuters has long been a special target for many extremists on the right (who sometimes refer to it as "al-Reuters") -- is hopelessly biased against Israel and in favor of Islamic terrorists, including Hezbollah, and that nothing the MSM reports about this war, or anything else for that matter, can be trusted. Many of these bloggers appear to hope that this incident will call into question the reliability of all reporting on the war outside of YTNews and Fox, including what happened in Qana, Lebanon, and any reports that reflect negatively on the Israeli war effort.
But Reuters hardly has a monopoly on scandals of this sort. Quite the contrary, examples of photographic alterations and political distortions of evidence are abundant. The blogger TBogg today documents two instances of photographic manipulation -- one from the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign, which cloned members of the military in the audience while the president was speaking, and another that used Photoshop to falsely depict John Kerry at an antiwar rally next to Jane Fonda.
And then there was the complete misquoting by Fox News' Carl Cameron of John Kerry at the height of the 2004 campaign:
"Move over Dan Rather, Fox News' Carl Cameron is joining you in the hoaxer hall of shame. Fox News' Web site posted a story written by its top political reporter yesterday with made-up quotes that painted Democratic presidential contender John Kerry as a spa-going girly-man."
Ironically, one of the anti-Reuters lynch mob leaders, Little Green Footballs, defended Fox's publication of false Kerry quotes by arguing that Fox "pulled the article down and apologized for it the same day. That is, of course, how a responsible news organization handles a situation like this" (emphasis added). That, of course, is precisely what Reuters did with the altered photographs. In fact, the agency went much further by removing all of the photographs and announcing it will never use that photographer again. Fox, by contrast, refused to remove Cameron from covering the Kerry campaign and continues to employ him. Worse, Fox excused itself by claiming that publication of the fake quotes "occurred because of fatigue and bad judgment, not malice."
And then there is the still-unsolved mystery of the identity of the pro-Iraq war advocates who created forged documents purporting to prove that Iraq sought 500 tons of uranium oxide ("yellow cake") from Niger -- complete fiction that made its way into Senate and presidential briefings, and then into the president's State of the Union address, helping to sell the invasion of Iraq.
By all means, misleading photographs and other fabrications should be documented and exposed. But such scandals typically reflect little about anything beyond the culpable individuals involved.
-- Glenn Greenwald
http://www.salon.com/politics/war_r...gers/index.html |
I agree with what Glenn noted in his opening remarks about these photos - there is no excuse for them. But the supposed "hysteria" by the Wingers about this incident really isn't anything new, and it fits their larger war on the mainstream media in of itself. Of course when you shine the same light on them for similar deceits like those mentioned above, they run for cover.
Just a little something to munch on. |
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| Fir3start3r |
It's interesting what news reporters believe they can get away with.
Good eye on the blogsphere! :cool: |
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