Reuters recently posted a photo over the Beirut skyline showing multiple plumes of black smoke. Not long after publishing the picture many blogs began to claim the photo was altered by having added more smoke making it look like more destruction.

Link to story




It's becoming pretty obvious to see the anti-israel bias in the media regarding this conflict.

Questions for debate:

1. Is Hezbullah winning the "PR war" because of the one sidedness of the media in regards to embellished reporting?

2. Is this more proof of a left wing bias in the media? If not, why?

1. Is Hezbullah winning the "PR war" because of the one sidedness of the media in regards to embellished reporting?

I think Hezbollah is getting a much more sympathetic treatment than it has in years. I think the cause of this is an association with civilians trapped in bombing zone without a demonstrated attempt by the Israelis to minimize that dreadful term, "collateral damage."

Israel is looked down upon for the actions that do not seem to directly target Hezbollah or do so without sufficient attempts to spare innocent civilian lives.

I believe also that the United States military, diplomatic, and intelligence programs have made Arabs and Muslims more prone to conspiracy theories about attempts to change the balance of power in the middle east against the interests of the average Arab Muslim.

2. Is this more proof of a left wing bias in the media? If not, why?

This is not proof of a left wing bias in the media. To me it is proof of a money bias in a capitalist system. While a big boom is nice media coverage, an enhanced apocalyptic (sp?) scene would get a lot more attention. This issue has more in common with Floyd Landis and Barry Bonds and Jayson Blair than it does with Ted Kennedy, Al Gore, Michael Moore, and Al Franken, and George Soros.

So it's only a coincidence that editorials across the country have been excoriating Israel for its "disproportionate" response? Or that media coverage has papered over the fact that Hezbollah would not even be satisfied with the destruction of Israel, but only with "the death of the last Jew on earth"?

Are you seriously arguing that this information is not readily available to the public? Perhaps you are a little right of the mainstream in feeling that Lebanese lives are fair game in this war and that Israel does not have a responsibility as a civilized nation to minimize the "collateral damage."



I was aware of this information and I agree that Hezbollah has brought these attacks upon itself. But I think Lebanon is fairly portrayed as a failing state that has been the victim of intimidation from interior and exterior forces. While I'm sure there are Lebanese who do not fall under the category of innocent, I don't see Lebanon as an overtly malicious force in the area. In fact it seems to be one of the salvagable states and was being looked at as a possible feather in the cap of the Bush administration for democratizing.

Is the media coverage glossing over reality or reporting false information. I have a failing faith in the media but feel in cyberspace and places such as we have abundant access to information. I see this incident as another in a series of sloppy journalistic acts by the so-called bastions of reporting. These mistakes are commonplace now and they show a serious decline in journalistic ethics and standards. Instead the industry has shifted to infotainment. Ratings are king, not integrity. Exhibit A is the New York Times.

1. Is Hezbullah winning the "PR war" because of the one sidedness of the media in regards to embellished reporting?

No, I think Israel is losing the PR game. No one is feeling good about Hezbollah, but Israel looks a blood-thirsty, careless and callous group of random murderers. I'm not saying that's the case, but that's the PR against Israel and it's not hard to make it stick.

2. Is this more proof of a left wing bias in the media? If not, why?

Does the left wing like Hezbollah and is it anti-semitic? Here in Michigan we have one of the greatest democratic senators in the country and he's a jew. His democratic brother is in the House. Ask Mz Clinton what she thinks of Israel.

Your question is a little loaded.

Just to update:

More fake photos from Reuters

This is more than just sloppy journalism Eeyore, and I am surprised you stated it that way. This is outright fabrication.

1. Talk about editorializing in a debate question. These two questions seem to both ask and answer themselves. I don't suppose interjecting the fact that Reuters has fired the freelance photographer makes any difference, huh?

LONDON (Reuters) - Reuters, the global news and information agency, told a freelance Lebanese photographer on Sunday it would not use any more of his pictures after he doctored an image of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on Beirut.

The photograph by Adnan Hajj, which was published on news Web sites on Saturday, showed thick black smoke rising above buildings in the Lebanese capital after an Israeli air raid in the war with the Shi'ite Islamic group Hizbollah, now in its fourth week.

Reuters withdrew the doctored image on Sunday and replaced it with the unaltered photograph after several news blogs said it had been manipulated using Photoshop software to show more smoke.

Reuters has strict standards of accuracy that bar the manipulation of images in ways that mislead the viewer.

"The photographer has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under," said Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters.

"This represents a serious breach of Reuters' standards and we shall not be accepting or using pictures taken by him," Whittle said in a statement issued in London.

Photographer fired

Whether or not Haji doctored the photos is now irrelevant. He got caught. He got fired. Probelm solved.
End of story.

2. This is a right-wing press bashing question. Pass.

1. Is Hezbullah winning the "PR war" because of the one sidedness of the media in regards to embellished reporting?

Hezbullah is not winning anything. America has spread her cloak of protection over Israel's war this time, and the rest of the world seems content to not intervene and let Israel reestablish its zone of protection in Lebanon and probably Golan as well. The media is reporting the news - dozens of civilians are being killed every day in Israel and Lebanon by terrorists and soldiers. Every story you can find about this conflict, every single one, points out that hezbollah is fighting back.

If you look at CNN.com right now, this is the headline you will see:

Civilians pay cost of war. http://www.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/meast/08/06/...main/index.html

If you follow the link to the story, the secondary headline reads: "Hezbollah rockets pound northern Israel"

The photo accompanying the story is:

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/2006/WORLD/meast/08...civilian.ap.jpg

With the caption: "A woman is rescued from the rubble in Haifa." Last I checked, Haifa is in Israel.

So we can count out today's headline from the most viewed news website in the world as being slanted towards Hezbollah, in fact, if anything, it would seem that this article is highly biased in favor of Israel (if, of course, reporting the damage on one side can been seen as biased for that side and against the other side, instead of just reporting damage).

2. Is this more proof of a left wing bias in the media? If not, why?

The American media has been a hotbed of radical conservatism for years. Reuters, on the other hand, is a German company. Perhaps Reuters has a left wing bias, but proving such bias is going to require more than allegations of photo doctoring. Even if the reporter did doctor the photos, we can speculate all day about the motivations for doctoring. Beyond demonizing Israel's war against - is it against Hezbullah or Lebanon, I'm not really sure, maybe you can point me to some sources that clear that up - it is probably just as likely, if not more likely, that the reporter was just trying to sensationalize the story to sell more photos. Many people are intrigued by gore and violence (evidence - rubber necking on the highway). Making the story seem bigger is a form of dishonest salemanship in the business of selling news. Let me be clear that I think doctoring the photos in this way is despicable - when I "buy" news I want it to be accurate not big. A used-car salesman will say that nothing is wrong with the car you are looking at when he knows something is wrong with and that doesn't implicate Ford directly, even though that deception is also wrong. Reuters specializes in publishing photos and articles by relatively independent journalists.

Edited: comment above covers Reuters response very well. Note that the original post also indicates that Reuters withdrew the pictures once the allegations came forward until they could be thoroughly investigated.

Yes. Without a doubt. You just have to read some of the accusations being made here to understand that. Since day one, long before Qana or any of the other dubious actions labelled as Israeli aggression, the western media has been willingly spoon fed by Hezbollah. It started with the mass panic of fleeing 'westerners', a great many of whom were Southern Lebanese natives who had managed to acquire European passports at some time in the past. Thousands of pro Hezbollah 'holiday makers' were given free access to grind their axes in the media and they did so. At length and with great acerbity, but scant details. Often, these people had no other experience than the horrors of a brief stop in a refugee camp. "My baby hasn't been changed in two days" one 'Danish woman' told DR nyheder when asked about Israeli aggression.

This isn't to say that a lot of people weren't completely put out by the sudden escalation of events, merely to question the actual danger they faced. Most of the early IAF actions were pin point bombings against very specific targets, but to listen to the western media (and I was reading Danish, Swedish, British, American and English language Arabic services) one might be forgiven for supposing Israel had launched a campaign of deliberate extermination against the Lebanese. It didn't take long for the Lebanese premier to understand the mood of the western media and make his own wailing lament about Israel's aggression, conveniently forgetting the presence of Hezbollah ministers in his government and the state of war his nation and government has continued to uphold against Israel.

Once the refugee story grew stale, Hezbollah launched a new front in the media war. Guided tours for willing western journalists into the ruins of the civilian infrastructure. "Look, no military installations here" the Hezbollah tour guide pointed to the heaps of grey rubble, beneath which lay God knows what. "Film this, film that!, oops, no time for questions, here comes an Israeli bomb!"

Link.

CNN weren't the only dupes, so eager to get the best shots of the destruction that they became a willing conduit for the Hezbollah propaganda unit. The BBC went far further in their global TV service. Their reporter was near to tears at the sight of the devastation, openly questioning why Israel had deliberately targeted Lebanons civilian infrastructure. The understanding that Hezbollah uses that infrastructure as a means to fight its dirty war, thus rendering it a legitimate target never seemed to enter his poor sweet innocent head.

Then there was the ambulance story where the IAF were said to have targeted two UN ambulances. The story was patchy, with no evidence, but still, the BBC and others were more than happy to make reference to it as if it were a known fact. Later, images surfaced of one the vehicles with a hole punched into its roof. Sure enough the vehicle was destroyed, but by what? An airborne missile scoring a direct hit would have totally obliterated such a flimsy vehicle, but in this case we were expected to believe that this, largely intact vehicle, with its stretcher still in place and no sign of blood any where was the site of the death and mutilation at the hands of the IDF?

It didn't matter though, the story was already stale by the time the pictures emerged and the western media had already moved on to their next big scoop. The ambulance story became a 'fact' like an urban myth, taking on the appearance of the truth, unquestioned, unproven, simply accepted.

Qana has been the biggest media circus yet. A building that collapsed eight hours after an IDF bomb landed thirty meters from it. A photo opportunity for global consumption with Hezbollah parading dead bodies for the greedy camera's. The images used across the planet as the foundation for nazi comparisons and accusations of war crimes...

Some of which images taken by Adnan Hajj, the same Lebanese photographer who has now been fired by Reuters for doctoring images... Naturally the news agencies have responded.

Link.
Ha ha ha, I guess Kathleen Carroll, AP's senior vice president and executive editor has never heard of Robert Capa.

Maybe she is also unaware that AP pays a bonus for such images.... ?
Link.

Who needs ideology to corrupt the media when you have greed!?


I think the proof is in the pudding if you ask me. You only have to read the stories and watch the TV news to know there is a bias. You see Israeli artillery pounding away (the BBC has had reporters waiting for the guns to fire before they start speaking, presumably to pound the message home) and then the story cuts to dead Lebanese kids. You never see the reverse because the Israeli's, like most democratic people's would, honour their dead and don't use them as propaganda tools. You see the IDF artillery firing but you never see Hezbollah firing... unless you read Persian... because most of the time Hezbollah fires from positions within the civilian infrastructure... though not for much longer given the fact that so many civilians have already fled the region.

All these things put together might, or might not mean the media is biased to the left, but it certainly shows it is biased against Israel.

I personally don't think the western media has political bias, but I do think it has an agenda towards what it thinks is peace. Journalists are essentially liars any way because they portray their own highly subjective perspective as objective truth. In the past many years, I cannot recall a single journalist ever explaining that s/he simply doesn't know whats going on. Usually, the story is put forwards as being the real deal, because the journalist 'is there', and a 'witness'.

Link.
Its also hard to imagine that a photojournalist taking pictures of dead children can tell us who killed those children, or why, but they do.

I don't know what the truth is in all this. Media bias? Propaganda? Greed?

In war, the truth is the first casualty... but we all seem to have forgotten that, especially the journalists!


~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~


What were they going to do once his capers had been exposed? Keep him on?


edited for spelling

To clarify. Reuters is a news service that has been given fabricated information and published it. Reuters did not have the editorial will or ability to catch this before publication. They did not sufficiently analyze the photos and went forward with its publication. Media that use Reuters took Reuters credibility and published these photos. I don't think this is bias, but I think it shows that accuracy in reporting has taken a back seat to sensational images and rapid fire reporting for the twenty four hour news cycle.

The sloppy journalism I refer to is Reuters', the bogus pictures were clearly "outright fabrication."

Another quote regarding journalism is that it is usually the first draft of history. As it is "the first draft" that means there are times when journalists don't get everything right.

In a 24-hour news cycle, there's a drive to get the story fast, get the story first. That sometimes means you might get the story wrong. I'm not a television journalist, so I don't have the stress of trying to dilute a complicated story into a two or three minute summing up. As a print journalist I have the luxury of a bit more time to dot all the "i's" and cross all the "t's."

I think there are times when any journalist has to say, "I don't have enough facts here to tell the story." That was true in the press coverage of the aftermath of Katrina in New Orleans and on reporting on the Iraq War. Sometimes the desire to be first with the news leads to some really sloppy journalism.

But that's a far cry for your totally biased, wrong-headed and specious sliming of the entire profession of journalism, Moif. I don't know squat about how journalism is practiced in Denmark, but you've exhibited an incredible lack of understanding of how journalism is practiced in America.

"Journalists are essentially liars because they portray their own highly subjective perspective as objective truth." What do you base that on besides your own limited experience or exposure to journalism? Are YOU a journalist or just another guy armed with a computer, the ability to do a few web searches for examples of media bias and an opinion?

Let's grant your premise that journalists are liars. There's a flip side to that. Most people are lemmings and like lemmings they will leap to their deaths, especially if a person of power and authority tells them there's a sweet treat waiting for them at the bottom of the cliff. Most people would rather be entertained than informed. Most people choose willful ignorance than empowering information. Most people are just too dumb to live.

Outrageous and insulting? So is branding an entire profession full of liars.

Journalists do not have the monopoly on truth. But they do have a head start. They are willing to go places and ask questions that governments, corporations and powerful people would prefer they didn't go and didn't ask. They expose themselves to death, injury and other threats to life and limb. If you know the name of Robert Capa, Moif, then you know he didn't exactly die in bed.

Capa never had to deal with Photoshop or guys that doctored photographs, but in this case the system worked. The perpetrator of the fraud, was discovered, the offending photos corrected and the photographer fired. But you still want your pound of flesh because in your tunnelvision view of the world, the western media isn't sufficiently pro-Israel.

But don't let the facts get in the way of a good smear-job, Moif. When are you going to give us the dirt on Mel Gibson?

What on earth does this have to do with Mel Gibson NT? I thought you were above pointless misdirection debate tactics, I guess not

This also wasn't just one isolated incident as more photos are being discovered to have been altered in Photoshop(or other photo editing software).

This isn't about the fervor and rush to get the story out first and overlooking some minute detail, this is outright fabrication with the sole intent to make things look worse than they are.

Why don't you call this what it is? Fraud!!

Being "available" to the public and being actually known to the public are two very, very different things. What the media choose to play up and what they choose to play down has a huge effect on public opinion.

And by the way, there are plenty of threads around here that deal with the appropriateness of Israel's response that you can go to if you want to talk about that. That's not what this thread is about. This is only about whether media bias is influencing public opinion, and thereby influencing the outcome of this crisis. It's all but obvious that it is having such an effect.

Coincidence - that is a meaningless question. Editorial writers are allowed to challenge what they perceive as disproportionate response, and that freedom of press is one of the things that makes America great.

The media has not papered over anything. The fact that you can report this quote is evidence contrary to your point. However, it does seem somewhat out of context, because it was from an uncited Hezbollah statement issued in 1992, at least that is what the cited New York Sun article claims.



Actually, this thread is about the appropriateness of Israel's response. Hypothetically, assume Israel's response was inappropriate, or could be viewed as such. Now, assume that editorial writers are allowed to voice their opinions, and people make their own opinions based on more or less critical readings of both editorials and journalism presented as objective. Now, let's say Hezbollah, a detestable terrorist party, happens to benefit from Israel's disproportionate response via public sentiment turning against Israel (again, hypothetically). We would then be left with the question whether the media's editorial dissatisfaction with Israel's war strategy was the cause of or merely a symptom of general disagreement with Israel's actions. Seen in this hypothetical context, stating that Israel's actions were disproportionate does in fact answer the original question:



The answer to the question is "No", Hezbollah is winning the PR war because of the media and the public's sense that Israel's response was disproportionate. In fact, I think even this statement is wrong, reflecting the wording of the original question, and the correct answer was given yesterday by RedCedar:



One might disagree with Israel's response without giving Hezbollah a victory. For example, if A pushes B and B shoots A and A's family, that might be seen as a disproportiate response. Stating that B's response is disproportiate is far from a victory for A.

Is this supposed to mean anything? I don't give a monkeys about the journalists deadlines! We have dead lines in the illustration and graphics business as well, but that doesn't mean we get to hand in what ever the frell we please!
If journalists can't tell the story with a sense of objectivity, then as far as I'm concerned they are in the business of propaganda, no matter what ever else they call it.


Oh, I think you'll find its much the same all over the planet nighttimer. There is nothing unique about any one nation when it comes to journalism.

Sure some countries place a deeper emphasis on certain aspects of the business but I find that this is usually balanced by other aspects of the profession, such as the rush to be first with the latest breaking news even when there is really nothing to relate. The American crowd don't seem to be anything special to me either. I was well amused by the sheer quantity of basic mistakes, misunderstandings and fore drawn conclusions put about during the mo'toons crisis in the English speaking media. It was the first time I actually had more facts on hand than I was seeing online and on TV and it opened my eyes for good about the quality of the western press!

I'll never forget the '60 minutes' piece. What a joke! Only a fool or a deliberate liar could cram that much misinformation into a news article. Its no wonder conspiracy theories spring into being!


Didn't I just explain what I base it on?

Journalists portray their own highly subjective perspective as objective truth. Is that so hard to understand?

But if it makes you feel any better then, let me say that illustrators are liars also. In fact all image making and writing is essentially subjective and there fore a personal narrative. In other words, a lie. As human beings we describe what we see. Not what is. The point I'm making is not that journalists are scum, but that you cannot trust anything written by a journalist, because they get things wrong. Even if they're not rushing to fill a dead line then they are still human beings and misunderstand, forget, or not quite grasp all the aspects of what they are seeing.

But put a camera in front of a journalist and you'll get a story! It might be true in some parts and false in the others, but essentially it is a lie, just as much as any story told around a camp fire by a far ranging hunter to his tribe.


I'm not sure what this is about. Is it an attempt at sarcasm?

I'll assume it is and reply thus: I am neither outraged nor insulted. I brand an entire profession as liars because that is how I see them. The thing is I don't care that they are so, for all people are liars even when they believe they are telling the truth. Journalists just get paid to give us their lie's, to tell us what they think is the truth, or what they think their audience wants to hear about.

I've been hanging about journalists all my adult life and the one thing they all have in common is their sarcastic way of looking at things. I don't mind it, its funny. Recently I was told about a journalist student who was told in her class that the truth was not important. What was important was getting the story the audience wanted to hear about.

Guess what country she was from...


Er... yeah... that was kind of my point nighttimer. Kathleen Carroll couldn't perceive of anyone going into a combat zone to set a picture up...


er... Capa set up images just as easily without. His famous dying soldier in the Spanish civil war was faked. The same guy is later seen alive and well on the very same reel of film and Capa had at least one other guy pretending to be shot as he was photographed. And yes, I know some people claimed to have identified the dying soldier and proved the veracity of Capa's image, but the truth is, unless Capa had a time machine, then there is no way he could have taken the pictures in the order he did. They didn't have digital time stamps in Capa's day so there is no way the AP excuse can be applied. What they did have, and what all of history has had is willing volunteers to pull the wool over other people's eyes.


Actually, I'll settle for slower but accurate news, regardless of who is being reported about, it might be nice to have an objective and detailed media instead of the money grasping sensationalists we have today.


Sorry but I have no opinions worth mentioning about religious fanatics who get tanked up and abuse police officers.


edited to add nighttimers name into the quotes... and to add a missing paragraph!

No this thread is not about the appropriateness of Israel's response, and I should know I started this thread.

Hezbollah is winning this "PR war" because they know how to stage and set up for the cameras. And had it not been for some bloggers, they would have had more help from Reuters.

Since the question was actually:



My response remains:

No, Israel is losing the PR war because people are dissatisfied with Israel's disproportionate response. A defeat in PR for Israel (caused by Israel's own actions) is not automatically a victory for Hezbollah - Israel is likely going to take over much of Lebanon and no one is going to stop them. So, the final tally:

Israel - wins strategic war on the ground
Israel - loses PR war because war is perceived as unnecessary
Hezbollah - loses strategic war on ground, driven out of area where they can harass/kill Israeli civilians
Hezbollah - media and world (except for other terrorists) still think Hezbollah is a bunch of evil psychopaths, winning nothing

Moreover, your question assumes the onesided-ness of the media's response, which is not merely dubios but directly contrary to the media's actual coverage. Since the media's coverage has not been one sided, people have made up their own minds about Israel's actions (as they also have about Hezbollah). So the perception that Israel is wrong is not exclusively attributable to editorials about the disproportionate nature of Israel's reaction.

As the media's coverage has not been one sided in this conflict, and has reported as many attacks BY Hezbollah AGAINST Israel as vice versa, the question fails in two ways:

First - Hezbollah is not winning anything
Second - The media's reporting has not favored Hezbollah

Since Reuters pulled the photos and issued a retraction as described in several posts above, this is not proof of left wing bias in the media, and the answer to the second question is also no.

[[[Sorry about all the edits.]]]

Moif, aren't you going a little bit too far with your opinion here? In today's western world journalists play only a small, but specific role in the information industry. They go to the place where the action is and report what they see, what they hear. They hardly have the time to explain and sometimes not even the ability to oversee the complexity of the situation. The viewers should know that what you hear is only a small piece of the overall picture and (especially in times of war) most of the time is only information the fighting parties are willing to give. To place the information in a bigger and better perspective is most of the times a job for preferably neutral (political, military etc) analysts who normally are given more time to debate a certain newsbit (debating for example whether the information coming from the battle front is credible or how it should be interpreted in view of the overall situation). At least that is the way it is done in Holland. In this way objectivity can and should still be preserved.

The fact that the picture that triggered this discussion was exposed followed by the fact that the photographer was taken off of Reuters payroll and the picture removed was the only sensible thing to do of course. It is a clear sign that in some cases information is tweaked to make it more dramatic or interesting. It doesn't mean a professional and highly respected organisation like Reuters should be viewed as a biased information outlet.


Left wing bias in the media? Could you please explain me what this means in the light of this discussion?

I should just like to point out that I made a mistake in quoting Kathleen Carroll when it ought to read Patrick Baz, you see, I'm as human as the journalists and I may mistakes as well...doesn't stop me from telling it as I see it either

Why not?

Why does Reuters get the benefit of the doubt?

I think your forgetting that reporters, those who go out to investigate and report, aren't the only journalists. Editors are also journalists, and when I read some one like Patrick Baz, (my previous post but one) saying "It's hard to imagine how someone sitting in an air-conditioned office or broadcast studio many thousands of miles from the scene can decide what occurred on the ground with any degree of accuracy," I have to laugh, because thats exactly what editors do!

They decide which material goes out to the public based on their own perceptions and, as I see it, perception is always flawed because it is never accurate. Even the most astute human observer makes mistakes, and thats with giving humanity the benefit of the doubt! Most people are apt to make up the details to fill in the gaps and it doesn't require a great level of perception to see just how often journalists resort to interviewing other journalists in lieu of having anything new to report, or worst of all, confusing the issue by asking people how they feel about something. There have been many instances of journalists caught making up details or even whole stories in some cases. Often these people are not caught straight away, despite their editorial superiors, because the perception of truth is so subjective that as often as not, you can be right and wrong at the same time on any given subject, depending on your point of view. A couple of years ago there was a journalist called Stephen Glass who got away with many fake stories before he was caught, and before you accuse eme of blaming all journalists for Glass's sins, let me say that its not Glass's sins that provoke my scepticism of journalists, its the fact that he could do it for so long before he was caught.

This case with Adnan Hajj is the same. How long would Hajj have carried on 'removing dust' from his photo's unless outsiders had not noticed? Reuters not only didn't noticed, but they've tried to pass it off as if it were nothing!
The whole world is up in arms over the pictures taken by this man and they say, ''not our fault''!

It seems to me, that any journalist worth his salt would have understood the possible partizan nature of a Lebanese photojournalist with a name like Hajj and kept a open eye on his work as a result! But no. This fellow is not only given every liberty to make loose with his images but on top of that he is patted on the back! Goebbels must be looking up with pride!

Its this, sloppy attitude that so irritates me. This silly insistence on the multicultural world view that allows a Muslim extremist free access to the western media.... and how do I know he is an extremist?
I don't, maybe he was only doctoring his work to get a $500 prize like AP was handing out for best shot of the week, but whats the difference for Reuters? This guy could have any agenda under the sun and they didn't care.

1. Is Hezbullah winning the "PR war" because of the one sidedness of the media in regards to embellished reporting?

One could easily suspect they were, but I don't think people are so easily swayed by the media.
A recent poll here in Denmark showed 48% of respondents sided with Israel, 7% with Hizbollah and 37% said they thought both sides were equally to blame. This poll is after weeks of war with reports everyday of "babykilling" Israelies and such... of course the large support for Israel may have something to do with the Cartoons affair, but I digress.


2. Is this more proof of a left wing bias in the media? If not, why?

The only real bias the media has is towards what sells, and, sadly, a lot of people seems to want to hear the message about "evil" Israel commiting "genocide", so the media delivers. Nobody is interested in the truth, because with the truth comes tough choices. It's easier to just say "ceasefire", so we can feel good and forget about the middle east again and go about our daily lives.

The truth of the matter is though, that I a long time ago stopped giving a damn about how many babies die in Lebanon or Israel - and you could say the media plays a part in that. Every death is a tragedy, but when you see death and destruction each day on television from around the world, you stop caring, and you begin to wonder why you ever cared.... 200 years ago I would have lived happily without ever knowing. Some people call it desensitizing, but really, are humans even supposed to care about what happens to people you don't know? Maybe I would care if I had some influence on the situation, but alas I don't and I never will, however much I would want it.

This leads me to point.. sort of.

I find it utterly ironic how much media attention this minor war is getting, compared to the media attention the wars in Africa gets - wars that have cost millions of lives and continue to do so. If the media has any clear bias, is it against Africa. It's hard to take the media outrage over anything that happens in he ME seriously, when you consider the media blackout there is on affairs in Africa. Don't send any UN/NATO force to the middle east, send it to Africa for heavens sake - it would save countless more lives, and if they had the right mandate (to do anything and everything to set things right) I would reenlist immediately.

sorry for the rant

I can’t wait to get paid for making stuff up!

Is Hezbullah winning the "PR war" because of the one sidedness of the media in regards to embellished reporting?
I get so tired of questions clamoring for both sides. Complaints aren’t centered on accuracy in reporting, and they’re definitely not about the quality of modern day journalism. They’re about the struggle on the continuum between consensualism and majoritarianism in our foreign policy. American consensualism after WWII hit a snag in Vietnam and it’s happening again, gnawing our psyche. Majoritarianism may be fine for domestic policy purposes, but we can’t dare show division in foreign affairs. One way to put things to rights or make sense of it all is by shoring up support. That leads to charges of bias, as is the case in this thread.

Hez is winning the PR war because Olmert thought to staunch the bleeding in the polls for his unilateral idea by sticking with air superiority and keeping as many IDF soldiers out of rifle range as long as possible. He eventually had to give in to Peretz, however. The late arrival of guerilla tactics is not enough to undo the damage caused by bombing civilian cars fleeing areas Israel wanted them to flee, and bombing ambulances arriving to assist the wounded under suspicion that Hez militants were inside them. Not to mention that in the process of bombing access roads you cut off relief supplies from reaching the population and forfeit your ability to defend your air strikes against criticism through leaflets because escape becomes impossible.

Is this more proof of a left wing bias in the media? If not, why?
News outlets do anything to get the ratings bias in the media, but I don't think Rueters was an active participant in this duplicity. If Reuters is guilty of anything it's publishing already doctored photos by Hajj. Of course media outlets have their bias, but it’s not generated by ideology. It’s generated by ratings:


Incidents of doctoring photos aren’t in short supply. Rice has been made evil-looking, Cuban police were made to appear complicit in crime by an anti-Castro paper, Kerry wasn’t sitting beside Jane Fonda, Martha Stewart needed a digital face-lift, thousands of Iraqis didn’t celebrate the invasion, and this isn’t the first time Reuters is duped.

In the age of outsourcing to make ends meet, hiring independent photojournalists makes perfect sense from an economic standpoint. Except when business directives inadvertently jar our perception of fairness and accuracy in reporting. Then such policy shortcomings become a political tool, and economic situations can go to hell while we bask in our “truthful” perception of the media.

Congratulations. So new to , and already you've mastered the tactic of putting words in people's mouths. I of course never remotely denied that they have the right to criticize whatever they want. Eeyore was claiming that something other than media bias was at work in the doctoring of these photos, and I only noted that it's rather uncanny how the doctored photos just happen to support the editorial line taken by most major U.S. newspapers.


There's a bit of a difference between "papering over" and "utterly suppressing".


I don't know what you mean by "uncited". It's an established newspaper, so it qualifies as as much of a source of information as any other newspaper, unless the information is challenged, or unless the newspaper has a history of false or questionable reporting (a la Jayson Blair, Dan Rather, Walter Duranty, etc.). So far, neither has been the case, so it can be treated as authentic. And it does cite another newspaper, the Lebanon Daily Star, in quoting Nasrallah as saying that he hopes all Jews move to Israel so he wouldn't have to chase them down all over the world.


The debate question wasn't about editorial positions, but about "embellished reporting".

Let me get this straight - a Lebanese journalist doctors photos of a war in his home country to sell them to the world media, and this is linked somehow to American editorial sentiment that Israel response has been disproportionate to the harm they suffered in the kidnapping of the two soldiers? Don't you think it is more likely that this guy acted on his own, and that Reuters was just trying to sell both sides of the news, objectively, as they always do? Has Reuters been hiding the photos of the Hezbollah rocket attacks in Israel to support some anti-Semitic or pro-Islamic fundamentalist or anti-American (?) agenda? Nope. Out of curiosity, I checked Reuters' website, and found these photos from today:

http://photos.reuters.com/Pictures/default.aspx for:
http://i.today.reuters.com/Pictures/galler...leb07080606.jpg
Entitled: Hizbollah missiles streak the sky as they are launched towards Israel from south Lebanon August 6, 2006. (LEBANON)

http://today.reuters.com/misc...PICTURE.jpg
Entitled: Israeli firefighters examine the damage to a school building hit by a rocket during an attack on the city of Kiryat Shmona in northern Israel near the Israel-Lebanon border, August 7, 2006. REUTERS/Petr Josek

Or from CNN:

http://i.a.cnn.net/cnn/interactive/world/0...aramsheh.ap.jpg
Entitled: A relative wails at the scene of a rocket attack that killed three women from the same family in the town of Arab el Aramsheh, in northern Israel.



Nor did I suggest you denied the rights of the editors to criticize what they want. Nonetheless, the implication of the word uncanny in your post amounts to accusing the news media of a conspiracy to undermine Israel by doctoring the news, apparently because their views happen to be supported by a particular journalists fraud, the motivations for which seem more pecuniary than political. If you think they are wrong, it is your prerogative to think and say so. But when you accuse them of a conspiracy to fix the news, that it something different. You are not longer challenging their ideas but their honesty. And the dishonesty of the media has not been born out by the photo doctoring controversy. (coincidentally, this answers question 2).

Either way, the evidence does not support such a contention. The vast majority of photographs and images that have come out of Lebanon have not been doctored. Israel is attacking targets in civilian areas - albeit to hit the bad guys - and that is going to cause civilian casualties. The people of the world are made uncomfortable by civilian casualties, and would prefer that international affairs are handled in a way which minimizes or avoids entirely civilian casualties. Again, the photo doctoring is not a conspiracy. The editors are not concocting the civilian casualties.



The media is not utterly suppressing the terrible things Hezbollah has done and said. It's just that people think a ground war in Lebanon is not the best way to deal with the situation.



The question of the debate is:



I don't think Hezbollah is winning anything, I don't think the media coverage has been one-sided, and I don't think there has been a pattern of embellished reporting. There was a single instance of embellished reporting. Moreover, as has been repeated in this thread numerous times, people are displeased with Israel's disproportionate response not because the editor of their paper or a Lebanese photographer tells them to be so, but because Israel's response has not seemed like the wisest or best course of action. There is a causal breakdown here - it is not "the onesidedness of the media in regards to embellished reporting" causing Hezbollah to win any PR war, primarily because Hezbollah is not winning a PR or any other kind of war, and because there is not a systematic onesidedness of the media's reporting or a pattern of embellishment.

Why don't you call this what it is? Over.



So, if it's on television, on the radio or in print, it's not to be trusted? Where do you go for unbiased, impartial and fact-checked news reports?

Thanks for verifying what I thought was true, Moif. You know about as much about what journalism is and how journalists work as I know about commercial illustrators. Not nearly enough.

Just because you want it to be over doesn't mean it is...
...Seeing many major news sources can't help but cover this...

What's funny is watching people on CNN and MSNBC try to give credence to the "dust on the photo" excuse.

And no comment on the Mel Gibson remark to Moif... Classy

Since you are in the journalism business maybe you can tell us how an editor can miss an obvious photo doctoring, but the general public can catch it? Would Reuters have pulled Hajj's images if nobody had caught it except somebody internally?

I think what was meant is that constructive debate on this topic ended long ago, as there is no evidence or reason to suspect that the doctored photos are the tip of the iceberg in a vast pro-Hezbollah media conspiracy.

To answer your last questions in the order they were written, how can an editor miss an "obvious" photo doctoring, but the general public catch it? Apparently, Adnan Hajj had worked for Reuters for over ten years as a freelance photographer. That would mean sometimes they would use his photos. Sometimes they wouldn't. Any editor who works with freelancers over time develops a certain degree of trust they will get the job done---on time and right the first time.

Guess the editor or editors trusted the wrong guy this time. Stuff happens. Reuters had an odd way of vetting photographs.

The two altered photographs were among 43 that Hajj filed directly to the Reuters Global Pictures Desk since the start of the conflict on July 12 rather than through an editor in Beirut, as was the case with the great majority of his images.

Filing drills have been tightened in Lebanon and only senior staff will now edit pictures from the Middle East on the Global Pictures Desk, with the final check undertaken by the Editor-in-Charge, Reuters said.

link

Secondly, it wasn't the "general public" that caught Hajj's fraud. It was blogs like Littlegreenfootballs.com that exposed Hajj's duplicity. Hooray for them. Still and all, blogs do a better job at spreading rumors than breaking stories. Additionally, most bloggers act as their own editors, fact-checkers, researchers and reporters. When they screw up and mislead the public who are they accountable to besides themselves?

While this may be an embarrassment to Reuters, what the bloggers would really like to discredit are the photographs taken by Hajj and others following Israel's bombing of civilians in Qana. At this point those photos have survived allegations they were staged.

Now, regarding Mel Gibson...

While the Reuters screw-up is grist for the mill on this board, I haven't heard anyone on the street paying any attention to it. This is one of those "inside baseball" stories where the blogosphere and debate boards may get a week's mileage out of it (maybe), the rest of John Q. Public really could care less. They're paying more attention to Paris Hilton's new vow of chastity or Mel Gibson's drunken anti-Semitic rants.

The only thing short-term that will come from the Hajj story is mainstream news organizations will be more wary of trusting freelancers when media coverage is under the microscope by conservatives and liberals for signs of bias. Long-term? This "story" isn't going to be the catalyst that moves someone straddling the fence one way or the other.

On this board we are obliged to respect everyone's opinion. It is against the rules to tell someone they are stupid or they don't know what they're talking about or should just shut up. One of the things that makes a intelligent outpost in an electronic Tower of Babel is we are compelled to publicly treat each other with respect even if we privately believe the other person is complete idiot.

Moif is entitled to believe all journalists are liars. I think that's an unwarranted blanket statement, but when I refer to the AD Survival Guide:

Blanket statements often take threads off the topic because members feel a need to defend their affiliations and not the specific subject at hand. This is not constructive. link

I've made my reply to Moif's original statement. I find it inaccurate and a slam on my chosen profession, but getting into a running battle with Moif over what he feels to be true would be a pointless endeavor. Those are my last words on the matter.

So with the likelihood that we WON'T be talking about Adnan Hajj this time next week, what about Mel Gibson since we're on the look-out for anti-Semitic bias?

Theres no such thing! I read and use articles which conform to my current perspective and understand full well the bias I display in doing so. I'm not so blind to my own failings to assume I understand better than any one else, thus I change my opinons constantly in order to keep up with events as I understand them.

I am not an unconditional party to Israel's side, I am merely become so in the light of information I have read. I am not so stuck in my ways though that I will remain a staunch ally to Israel regardless of what happens. Should I see convincing evidence to persuade me I will adapt my understanding again as I have done in the past.


I'm sorry if it bugs you nighttimer, but I just don't trust journalists to be more than human. These are people I've never met, in an industry notorious for its partisan approach to politics, often bought and paid for by private interests... and I'm just suppose to take it as a given that they can tell me an objective truth? I don't see anything to support that contention at all. Looking at the crisis in the Middle East I see the exact opposite. I see conjecture presented as fact and journalists allowing themselves to be used for propaganda purposes. Adnan Hajj is nothing remarkable in this. He is merely one who got caught out by his method.

Give me one good reason why I should trust journalists to tell me the truth?

I don't have to understand the full nature of an industry to know when some one is being dishonest with me. I've lost count of the many scandals, fabrications, retractions and outright lies I've been witness to over the years. The BBC is my particular bug bear, but I still go there to read what they write because I understand the nature of the thing. Its a subjective point of view and I take it as such.

When I'm told by a journalist that Israel is bombing civilians for example, I don't take it as a fact, (who in their right mind does?). A journalist is not a court of law and we've seen, many many times how journalists are used by unscrupulous party's to push forward a false image of events. The Middle East is notorious for this and its my observation that the BBC in particular falls into the trap every single time something might make Isael look bad. Whether its a dead baby or a fabricated massacre. Coincidence or just a clear bias? The 'Beeb' has recently described itself as 'too pro Israel', and yet I have never seen anything to support this. Should I accpet this as an honest self appraisal from an organisation which won't even refer to terrorists as such? No. It is a lie. Pure and simple. A deception to uphold a bias.

In the past I was happy to use such evidence in my debates because I believed then that Israel was in the wrong. Now I have seen the results of the Palestinian elections, I conceive of a different perspective. I may still be wrong, indeed I most probably am, but fortunately for me, I am willing to adapt my point of view if I see reason to do so. So far you haven't given me any reason to do so, and every reason to retain my pessimism, but thats okay, its not your job to convince me of anything.

If is not a matter of one or two doctored photos people. Yes Reuters is in the business of getting the scoop and yes they cut corners like most organizations in their business. This just part of a much larger problem. That problem is the Arab world and it's total control of the press.

There is NO free press in the Arab world at all. Not even the international press. It is very tightly controlled. To travel in Southern Lebanon reporters are REQUIRED to deposit their passports with Hezbollah, their guides and stringers are assigned by Hezbollah and they travel where, when and report what at Hezbollah's orders. I will be more than happy to supply the statements of former reporters that support this statement. Current ones either toe the line, do not get any stories, or are dead it's that simple.

This has been going on for a long time now. During the Gulf War CNN self-censored itself to stay on the good side of the Iraqi regime. This they admitted.

The PA has long required the same rules in it's territory and any that violate their rules are extremely lucky to be alive. The French news crew that filmed the citizens of Ramallah tearing apart two Israeli soldiers with their bare hands had to escape to Israel and then their network APOLOGIZED to the Arabs for broadcasting their filthy deed, because they knew that if they didn't that they could never again work in any Arab territory.

The bottom line in this debate topic is whether media embellishment is playing into Hezbollah's war efforts:

And the answer is still no. Even if Hezbollah controls the media, most people who take interest in world events (not the one's who care more about Mel Gibson or Paris Hilton) still see through Hezbollah's charade and censorship. Public opinion matters in wartime. But in this case, the public opinion situation in Lebanon is not so dependant on sympathy for Hezbollah institutionally but discomfort at Israel's response. If the warmaking power cannot drum up public opinion in support of the war, and the warmaking power actually cares about public sentiment (it is doubtful that Israel cares about world sentiment in this situation) - perhaps instead of blaming the journalists and editors in the media the military should have done some analysis ahead of the attack to see if public opinion would support the war or shaped their strategy to be something the public would have an easier time digesting. Otherwise, in a free society, militaries are going to have to live with editors who disagree and journalists that report the down-sides of the military campaign.



More to the point, don't trust journalists to "tell the truth." Read and watch the news critically, and form your own opinions based on what you see and hear.



I'm going to have to disagree with your characterization of the media as bringing a partisan approach to politics, especially as bought and paid for by private interests. I think this is highly exagerated, except in the case of cable TV news chanels like FOX. This is symptomatic of the belief that people are incapable of objective reasoning, which is only partially true. Of course true objectivity is impossible, but unlike postmodernists, I think people are capable of analyzing their own and others' situations with enough objectivity to make things like the news worthwhile.



Sure it could be a lie, but I haven't yet been told that Israel was bombing civilians. I've heard that Israel has bombed civilians accidentally while trying to target Hezbollah, and this makes sense to me. In fact, the media has not reported Israel denying this, and this is the kind of thing the media reports all the time.



The assertion that journalists are too subjective and that courts of law are the place to go for politic-free objectivity is silly.



What is your pessimism? That the media is lying about Israel's war in Lebanon?* Is Israel denying that they are attacking Lebanon? Is Israel denying that their planes are striking targets throughout their neighbor to the north? What possible reason is there to doubt that this is happening, and that some civilians have been killed, and that actual plumes of black smoke have been rising from Israel attacks in Beirut (in addition to any that have merely been doctored in?) Is there any reason to doubt that Hezbollah has been striking targets inside Israel with their rockets since the fighting began?

* Perhaps the media has lied about the war. But the question is whether the lies are a question of totality or degree. Logic suggests that whatever lies may have been told, whatever false statistics CNN reported on the air when Hezbollah held their cameraman at gunpoint (hypothetically), some civilians have probably been killed if any missiles have struck within the city of Beirut. In southern Lebanon, where Israel admits their soldiers are engaged in gun and artillery battles with Hezbollah fighters, is there any doubt that civilians caught in the cross-fire would be in danger, and the doubtless some of them have perished in the fighting?

If any of these are all legimitate possibilities, probabilities, or actualities, I don't think we can claim that the freelance journalist who doctored the photos was part of the media's pro-Hezbollah conspiracy (as the original topic for debate suggested).

But finally, it is not my job to convince you of anything, merely my hobby, thanks to America's Debate.

One can do nothing but laugh at a comment such as this. You really had me going right up until then.



So you are able to produce water from rock? Truth from a lie? This line of logic would have us disregard any sense of truth that we have and just accept whatever perspective it is we already hold. What difference does it make if a lie is told if the real "truth" is told? Come on.



Echoing my earlier sentiment, the logic you are supporting would have us disregard truth for ideology. Nobody is denying that Israel is attacking civilian areas since that is where Hezbollah has launched their rockets from. But doctoring photos and even showing pictures of the same event on different days to embellish the destruction is dishonest and distorts reality. The media has the freedom to print what it wants but it appears they are disregarding the responsibility that goes along with that freedom.

The news agencies are responsible for the pictures they print. And they're responsible for ensuring the people they hire are legit. So yes, the fact that doctored photos support the editorial positions of most newspapers is reason for suspicion.


You're really showing a propensity to exaggerate what people say. Just as there's a difference between papering over and suppressing, there's also a difference between making an accusation and raising a suspicion. And suspicion is definitely warranted in this case, especially given the fact that this is not an isolated incident with the major media (Rathergate being a recent example).

And it's funny that you then turn around and cast aspersions at Fox News, even though so far, I don't think they've ever been caught in something similar.

So Reuters fired this guy and pulled the pictures and issued an apology, and he'll never work again, and that was the right thing to do. But it does not prove nor suggest that Reuters is displaying photos with a political agenda.



If in fact Israeli bombs are falling in populated areas, and numerous legit photos showing this bombing are published that are materially no different from the doctored photos, displaying the doctored photos that show the same bombing that is not a threat to Reuters' journalistic integrity - merely a mistake. Since the damage and explosions in Beirut are well documented in other, unquestionably legit photos, there is really no need to even continue this particular debate, because the images, while fake, document something real that is confirmed by many other sources. The original topic of this debate was whether embellished reporting was helping Hezbollah, and the answer is still no, echoing my earlier sentiments, because the embellished reality is not materially different from the actual reality.

Here's an analogy - my neighborhood has a lot of termites. I start posting photos of the termites on the web, for whatever reason. Then my neighbor posts a photo of the termites on the web that has been embellished in some way. The embellished photos don't change the underlying reality of the termites - moreover, if a third person has an opinion about the termine problem, it is probable that it is more closely related to the underlying reality of the termites than to the embellished photo. As such, it is not the embellished photos of the bombing in Beirut that has turned world sentiment (to some degree) against Israel, but the bombing of Beiruit.



I took what you said about putting words in people's mouths seriously, and for mis-stating your position I apologize. This time, however, I carefully used the word "implication" when describing what I took to be the rational next step from your comments. Specifically, using words like "uncanny" and "suspicious" does imply that there is a media conspiracy to undermine Israel - which I think is farfetched.

I still don't understand what you are trying to say when you use the phrases papered over or suppressed. If memory serves, you used them to indicate that the media is hiding the fact that Hezbollah is rabidly anti-Semitic. There is a difference between papering over and utterly suppressing, but if a news source as well respected as the New York Sun reminds us of Hezbollah's anti-Semitism (as you pointed out), I'm sure it is inappropriate to say that the media, of which the Sun is certainly a part, is utterly suppressing this information.

I was offended by the tone of the original questions themselves and that is why I have spent so much time on this topic. Here's why I took offense - the fact that a small minority of photos were doctored does not change the fact that the Israeli military is killing and injuring civilians in its campaign to rid Lebanon of Hezbollah. The photos that were doctored are merely a sample of a large number of totally authentic images that document the suffering of the Lebanese civilians (comparable to the large number of authentic images that document the suffering of the Israeli civilians at the hands of Hezbollah rockets.) To suggest the fact that these photos were doctored reveals a left wing media conspiracy to support Hezbollah is insulting, careless, and minimizes the human suffering resulting from the Israeli-Hezbollah conflict.

Anyone who doesn't think Dan Rather was set up hasn't really explored that issue thoroughly. Moreover, one who likens Dan Rather's mis-reporting of Bush's military service (even if it was intentional and malicious) with Nixon's treasonous diversion of government intelligence personnel and millions of dollars of public funds to subvert a nationwide presidential election is not really in any position to criticize Reuters for editorial slant in their photo selection. Nixon was worse than Benedict Arnold, worse than Julius or Ethel Rosenberg, worse than Osama bin Laden - Nixon put his right hand on the bible and swore to protect the constitution and he did everything in his power to bring it down so that he could reign as long as possible.



This is a media forum, so we can start a thread about Fox news. But I don't mind casting aspersions on Fox, because Fox is well deserving; but Reuters? In this context?

"HUGE CHEMICAL WEAPONS FACTORY FOUND IN SO IRAQ.... REPORTS: 30 IRAQIS SURRENDER AT CHEM WEAPONS PLANT.... COAL TROOPS HOLDING IRAQI IN CHARGE OF CHEM WEAPONS." Fox News, March 23, 2003 (Conceivably, this could have been phrased as 'military sources report discovery of potentially large chemical weapons plant.')

Embellished reality is different from actual reality by very definition. You cannot support the distortion of truth by offering the argument that the distortion "IS" truth. The distortion makes the situation appear different than it actually is. In your view, what difference does it make that a few of the photos were photoshopped to look worse then they actually are because the situation is bad in the first place. But what if we translated that logic to every news story? I can only imagine the embellishment that would be allowed to go on.



The embellishment DOES change the reality of the situation or else you would not be altering the photograph.