THE Story Of The Day: Reuters' Chickens Come Home To Roost
Isn't it funny how life works out at times? Cox And Forkum appreciate the buffoons at Reuters. Not only did they get a laugh out of the Photoshop controversy of the weekend, but like every blogger out there that paid attention, they relished the opportunity to give the "esteemed" news organization a richly-deserved black-eye; in doing so, Reuters now has some ghosts it's gotta outrun whenever it does a news story. The question will always be there of "Is it live or is it Photoshop?" Not a fitting way to blow your foot off, but then again the MSM is adept at such target practice.
This story isn't being covered int he MSM. Every major news outlet, save FOX News (who had it under their breaking news headlines yesterday), has ignored it. It's like a replay of Rathergate all over again. Then the press did nothing but defend Dan Rather, and chastise the bloggers. Again, that happened this time, too, as defenders of Reuters vilified the bloggers who broke this story. (A note here: We don't include ourselves among the bloggers who worked this story over. We are merely recapping and commenting on the events that have unfolded.) And I'm not going to sit here and defend what bloggers have done. Marcie has covered that. And rightly so, she identifies my post on Saturday night with the breaking of this scandal. To use her word, I did "excoriate" the MSM for their behavior.
And whether it is faking the news, or revealing national security secrets, the MSM is always there to stir the pot, but are disgustingly absent when we point out that they screwed up the recipe. It's not our fault they screwed up--deliberately or accidently. We're merely the messengers, and the first ones to demand explanations when things like this occur. To quote Bill Keller, "it's in the public interest" to know how Reuters could have accepted the photo-manipulation as authentic, and if there was any suspicion (Reuters claims the photo was vetted properly) why was it run at all? Citizens demanding answers isn't impertinent; we utlimately serve as a check against this sort of journalism.
And what a check it is. Since the breaking of the story, Pajamas Media has covered the Reuters meltdown. It's gone from one photo--thoroughly debunked by a number of experts--to several. This led Reuters to pull all of Adnan Hajj's photos from their site, and to let the freelancer go. (No tears for Hajj as I'm sure al-Manar can put him to work as a propagandist photographer. Ironically, that's what he did for Reuters so he's qualified for the job.)
It is the job of a media outlet to provide facts for people to decide what is true and what isn't. Directly manipulating the news to manipulate public opinion is a crime. Not in the sense that it's prosecutable, but rather one that breaks the ethics of journalism, as a whole. I highlighted the notable laspes on Saturday night. Little did I know at the time that Reuters was about to join the foray. But they did, and I'm still trying to figure out if this is truly sad, or utterly hilarious.
The MSM's position in this world is groing dimmer by the day. People can say that the old media is still strong and still around aren't paying attention to the falling ratings, the drop in subscriptions, and the departure of longtime advertisers. This translates to a loss of revenue, and a drop in the attention of the average person when it comes to paying attention to the news. Will the world shift to reading only blogs? Not hardly, but the amount of blog readers continues to grow. And each time there is a major snafu in the media, like this past one with Reuters, more people will join the other blog readers to keep up with the news. Bloggers provide opinion, but based on what we read or the news story we're referring to. It isn't interjected into the piece itself.
This was a bad incident for Reuters. Not only did they get caught once, but it appears there have been a number of photos that have either been manipulated, or orchestrated, and it was all done in a deliberate attemtpt to shape the readers/viewers opinions. As a matter of fact, through the links we have provided, you can easily find the original photo that had been Photoshopped, and you'll see that there isn't much there. A couple of buildings had smoke rising from them, but not anywhere near the amount that was added to the originally published Hajj photo. And as Allah Pundit put it, it's "the worst Photoshop I've ever seen." Anyone who has seen it agrees. Marcie, Michelle, and Captain Ed pointed to the fact that even sports photographers were discussing it, and they agreed it was a fake.
So how did it pass through the editors of the Reuters, and make it onto the website? Why did the editors not flag it as possibly being faked? Why did it take them so long to pull the Hajj archives especially when the bloggers immediately went to work on his archives over the weekend and turned up more such photos. Marcie is astutely correct: This is Jayson Blair big. An editor at Reuters needs to be called on the carpet for this one. It's unacceptable that a news service allows for such flagrant misrepresentations, and such sloppy editorial work.
Publius II
Isn't it funny how life works out at times? Cox And Forkum appreciate the buffoons at Reuters. Not only did they get a laugh out of the Photoshop controversy of the weekend, but like every blogger out there that paid attention, they relished the opportunity to give the "esteemed" news organization a richly-deserved black-eye; in doing so, Reuters now has some ghosts it's gotta outrun whenever it does a news story. The question will always be there of "Is it live or is it Photoshop?" Not a fitting way to blow your foot off, but then again the MSM is adept at such target practice.
This story isn't being covered int he MSM. Every major news outlet, save FOX News (who had it under their breaking news headlines yesterday), has ignored it. It's like a replay of Rathergate all over again. Then the press did nothing but defend Dan Rather, and chastise the bloggers. Again, that happened this time, too, as defenders of Reuters vilified the bloggers who broke this story. (A note here: We don't include ourselves among the bloggers who worked this story over. We are merely recapping and commenting on the events that have unfolded.) And I'm not going to sit here and defend what bloggers have done. Marcie has covered that. And rightly so, she identifies my post on Saturday night with the breaking of this scandal. To use her word, I did "excoriate" the MSM for their behavior.
And whether it is faking the news, or revealing national security secrets, the MSM is always there to stir the pot, but are disgustingly absent when we point out that they screwed up the recipe. It's not our fault they screwed up--deliberately or accidently. We're merely the messengers, and the first ones to demand explanations when things like this occur. To quote Bill Keller, "it's in the public interest" to know how Reuters could have accepted the photo-manipulation as authentic, and if there was any suspicion (Reuters claims the photo was vetted properly) why was it run at all? Citizens demanding answers isn't impertinent; we utlimately serve as a check against this sort of journalism.
And what a check it is. Since the breaking of the story, Pajamas Media has covered the Reuters meltdown. It's gone from one photo--thoroughly debunked by a number of experts--to several. This led Reuters to pull all of Adnan Hajj's photos from their site, and to let the freelancer go. (No tears for Hajj as I'm sure al-Manar can put him to work as a propagandist photographer. Ironically, that's what he did for Reuters so he's qualified for the job.)
It is the job of a media outlet to provide facts for people to decide what is true and what isn't. Directly manipulating the news to manipulate public opinion is a crime. Not in the sense that it's prosecutable, but rather one that breaks the ethics of journalism, as a whole. I highlighted the notable laspes on Saturday night. Little did I know at the time that Reuters was about to join the foray. But they did, and I'm still trying to figure out if this is truly sad, or utterly hilarious.
The MSM's position in this world is groing dimmer by the day. People can say that the old media is still strong and still around aren't paying attention to the falling ratings, the drop in subscriptions, and the departure of longtime advertisers. This translates to a loss of revenue, and a drop in the attention of the average person when it comes to paying attention to the news. Will the world shift to reading only blogs? Not hardly, but the amount of blog readers continues to grow. And each time there is a major snafu in the media, like this past one with Reuters, more people will join the other blog readers to keep up with the news. Bloggers provide opinion, but based on what we read or the news story we're referring to. It isn't interjected into the piece itself.
This was a bad incident for Reuters. Not only did they get caught once, but it appears there have been a number of photos that have either been manipulated, or orchestrated, and it was all done in a deliberate attemtpt to shape the readers/viewers opinions. As a matter of fact, through the links we have provided, you can easily find the original photo that had been Photoshopped, and you'll see that there isn't much there. A couple of buildings had smoke rising from them, but not anywhere near the amount that was added to the originally published Hajj photo. And as Allah Pundit put it, it's "the worst Photoshop I've ever seen." Anyone who has seen it agrees. Marcie, Michelle, and Captain Ed pointed to the fact that even sports photographers were discussing it, and they agreed it was a fake.
So how did it pass through the editors of the Reuters, and make it onto the website? Why did the editors not flag it as possibly being faked? Why did it take them so long to pull the Hajj archives especially when the bloggers immediately went to work on his archives over the weekend and turned up more such photos. Marcie is astutely correct: This is Jayson Blair big. An editor at Reuters needs to be called on the carpet for this one. It's unacceptable that a news service allows for such flagrant misrepresentations, and such sloppy editorial work.
Publius II
posted by Syd And Vaughn | 2:20 PM
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