Reutergate: Caught Again, And Again, And Again ...
For those that enjoyed the nice, quiet, and relatively peaceful weekend with no news interruptions, the blogosphere has a present for you. Ironically this past weekend (Saturday to be exact) Thomas posted an excoriating post regarding his dislike of the media. This dislike does not simply go to the usual "media bias" arguments. This goes way beyond bias. Then, Saturday night, I caught the story from Charles Johnson that Reuters was nailed on a doctored photograph from Adnan Hajj. Hajj was made infamous with his photos of the supposed Qana massacre. (Just for the record, the "massacre's" story got out because of the Hajj photos, and now this little episode puts a great deal of doubt as to whether Qana happened at all.)
Reuters was hit with a blogswarm the likes of which have not been seen since Rathergate. People were outraged at the clearly evident Photoshop job done on the photos submitted to Reuters. Once the photo was outed as being manipulated, Reuters took the photo down, and replaced it with a different one without even an explanation. I am sure that Reuters believed that was the end of the matter. However bloggers abide by a simple credo when it comes to things like this: Where there is smoke, there is fire.
Enter the Bloggers:
Rusty at My Pet Jawa located a possible photo-manip of Beirut Airport after a bombing raid, and notes an irregular pattern in how the photo looks.
Then Rusty spotted this photo from Reuters, which not only misidentifies what the F-16 is doing, but on a thorough analysis, Rusty proclaims that two of the flares being dropped are acutally "cloned" into the image, as well. Charles picked it up, too. And Michelle was right in the thick of it, as well.
Drinking From Home hit them with another pair of photos, dated FIFTEEN days apart. Reuters would people to believe that the woman is different in both photos. But, as DFH points out, the scar on the cheek is in the same place; it is the same woman. John, at PowerLine adds fuel to the fire that DFH discovered.
And now word has come down that ALL of Hajj's photos have been pulled, and his time with Reuters has been terminated. However, we are left with the same questions now as we had after Jayson Blair was caught plagerising and lying in stories to the New York Times, and after Rathergate.
The old media is supposed to have checks in place to avoid these sorts of mistakes. It is one thing to do it once. It is another thing entirely when the mistakes continue to occur. For Jayson Blair, Howell Raines was fired because of the leeway he granted Blair. For Dan Rather, Mary Mapes lost her job. At Reuters, whose head is on the chopping block now? The journalistic crimes committed by Adnan Hajj are equal to what Bilal Hussein did in Iraq.
The old media is sick and dying. They have been exposed, outed, and routed by the "upstarts" in the blogosphere. Yet these people have done an excellent job in acting as de facto ombudsmen for the media. In going after these sorts of shenanigans--deliberately misleading viewers and readers--the bloggers have created a serious name for themselves. And someone in the old media should have already stepped up by now and demanded some sort of severe oversight policies when it comes to gathering and distributing the news. But none have done that as yet. They feel that these "mistakes" happen so infrequently that their usual standard for vetting pieces and images works just fine.
Yes, yes. Until the Hajjs and Husseins come along. Or Jayson Blair decides to opine about the Minnesota State Fair while he was in New York. Or Dan Rather comes up with more "fake, but accurate" documents in an attemtp to hammer on another Republican. When these sorts of stories emerge, when the scandal surrounding the reporting surpasses the story itself, then the old media has a problem. THEY are not supposed to be the news story. Questions surrounding the authenticity of the story should not be the central focus.
In conclusion, we can see what sort of organization Reuters is in this little tidbit fromWikinews today:
The Reuters news agency has retracted a photograph of Beirut, Lebanon, after finding out that it was altered. Reuters released a statement saying: "Photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvience." The photograph had shown two plumes of black smoke rising out of buildings in Beirut.
Meanwhile a Reuters employee was suspended after using Reuters internet access to issue a threat saying, "I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut." The e-mail was sent to Charles Johnson, who maintains the Little Green Footballs blog. Johnson said: "This particular death threat is a bit different from the run of the mill hate mail we get around here, because an IP lookup on the sender reveals that he/she/it was using an account at none other than Reuters News. I think it's more than fair to say that Reuters has a big problem."
Reuters spokesman Ed Williams said: "I can confirm that an employee has been suspended pending further investigation. The individual was not an employee of Reuters' news division."
We must concur with Charles. Reuters does have a serious problem and in the worst sense of the term. This employees retaliation is no different from Michael Hiltzik's against Patrick Frey of Patterico's Pontifications, and Mr. Hiltzik lost his job over that. But this fiasco with Reuters and Mr. Hajj should show the world where Reuters really stands, and why so many bloggers refer to Reuters as "al-Reuters." Their loyalties lie clearly with our enemies and Israel's.
Marcie
For those that enjoyed the nice, quiet, and relatively peaceful weekend with no news interruptions, the blogosphere has a present for you. Ironically this past weekend (Saturday to be exact) Thomas posted an excoriating post regarding his dislike of the media. This dislike does not simply go to the usual "media bias" arguments. This goes way beyond bias. Then, Saturday night, I caught the story from Charles Johnson that Reuters was nailed on a doctored photograph from Adnan Hajj. Hajj was made infamous with his photos of the supposed Qana massacre. (Just for the record, the "massacre's" story got out because of the Hajj photos, and now this little episode puts a great deal of doubt as to whether Qana happened at all.)
Reuters was hit with a blogswarm the likes of which have not been seen since Rathergate. People were outraged at the clearly evident Photoshop job done on the photos submitted to Reuters. Once the photo was outed as being manipulated, Reuters took the photo down, and replaced it with a different one without even an explanation. I am sure that Reuters believed that was the end of the matter. However bloggers abide by a simple credo when it comes to things like this: Where there is smoke, there is fire.
Enter the Bloggers:
Rusty at My Pet Jawa located a possible photo-manip of Beirut Airport after a bombing raid, and notes an irregular pattern in how the photo looks.
Then Rusty spotted this photo from Reuters, which not only misidentifies what the F-16 is doing, but on a thorough analysis, Rusty proclaims that two of the flares being dropped are acutally "cloned" into the image, as well. Charles picked it up, too. And Michelle was right in the thick of it, as well.
Drinking From Home hit them with another pair of photos, dated FIFTEEN days apart. Reuters would people to believe that the woman is different in both photos. But, as DFH points out, the scar on the cheek is in the same place; it is the same woman. John, at PowerLine adds fuel to the fire that DFH discovered.
And now word has come down that ALL of Hajj's photos have been pulled, and his time with Reuters has been terminated. However, we are left with the same questions now as we had after Jayson Blair was caught plagerising and lying in stories to the New York Times, and after Rathergate.
The old media is supposed to have checks in place to avoid these sorts of mistakes. It is one thing to do it once. It is another thing entirely when the mistakes continue to occur. For Jayson Blair, Howell Raines was fired because of the leeway he granted Blair. For Dan Rather, Mary Mapes lost her job. At Reuters, whose head is on the chopping block now? The journalistic crimes committed by Adnan Hajj are equal to what Bilal Hussein did in Iraq.
The old media is sick and dying. They have been exposed, outed, and routed by the "upstarts" in the blogosphere. Yet these people have done an excellent job in acting as de facto ombudsmen for the media. In going after these sorts of shenanigans--deliberately misleading viewers and readers--the bloggers have created a serious name for themselves. And someone in the old media should have already stepped up by now and demanded some sort of severe oversight policies when it comes to gathering and distributing the news. But none have done that as yet. They feel that these "mistakes" happen so infrequently that their usual standard for vetting pieces and images works just fine.
Yes, yes. Until the Hajjs and Husseins come along. Or Jayson Blair decides to opine about the Minnesota State Fair while he was in New York. Or Dan Rather comes up with more "fake, but accurate" documents in an attemtp to hammer on another Republican. When these sorts of stories emerge, when the scandal surrounding the reporting surpasses the story itself, then the old media has a problem. THEY are not supposed to be the news story. Questions surrounding the authenticity of the story should not be the central focus.
In conclusion, we can see what sort of organization Reuters is in this little tidbit fromWikinews today:
The Reuters news agency has retracted a photograph of Beirut, Lebanon, after finding out that it was altered. Reuters released a statement saying: "Photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvience." The photograph had shown two plumes of black smoke rising out of buildings in Beirut.
Meanwhile a Reuters employee was suspended after using Reuters internet access to issue a threat saying, "I look forward to the day when you pigs get your throats cut." The e-mail was sent to Charles Johnson, who maintains the Little Green Footballs blog. Johnson said: "This particular death threat is a bit different from the run of the mill hate mail we get around here, because an IP lookup on the sender reveals that he/she/it was using an account at none other than Reuters News. I think it's more than fair to say that Reuters has a big problem."
Reuters spokesman Ed Williams said: "I can confirm that an employee has been suspended pending further investigation. The individual was not an employee of Reuters' news division."
We must concur with Charles. Reuters does have a serious problem and in the worst sense of the term. This employees retaliation is no different from Michael Hiltzik's against Patrick Frey of Patterico's Pontifications, and Mr. Hiltzik lost his job over that. But this fiasco with Reuters and Mr. Hajj should show the world where Reuters really stands, and why so many bloggers refer to Reuters as "al-Reuters." Their loyalties lie clearly with our enemies and Israel's.
Marcie
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 11:49 AM
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