Methinks thou dost protest too much, Moif. Don't make the mistake of thinking that how I write and post on America's Debate has any relation to how I do my job as a journalist. There's no editors, no proof-readers and no fact checker employed here.

What you call "extrapolation," I call "interpretation." I don't think I misinterpreted your highly-charged phrase (If some one owns you, are you then free? It's clear to me you don't understand the practice of journalism Moif, but are you clueless as to how combustible the issue of slavery still is in this country?

If you want to say journalists aren't free to write what they like, I'd be in full agreement with that sentiment. Journalists can't write whatever they like without review, scrutiny or repercussion. But that's quite different from saying journalists are owned and are thereby not free human beings.

I'm not the one making the broad leap in logic here. But even if I am, it's in response to your provocative statement that all journalists are liars and owned like slaves by the people who employ them.

You should recognize that line of argument. It's the same one you employ to justify Israel's disproportionate use of force against Lebanon.



Yeah. Right. What is being "exposed" is how careless a few media outlets have been. If you think Hezbollah exercises more influence over the mainstream media than America's pro-Israel lobby, you're kidding yourself. Demonstrating how that lobby goes about its business isn't hard, but requires more space than I want to devote to this already long post.

More later....

You can prove Rueters and the AP doctored the photos themselves? No? Just a hunch? Hiring freelance photographers can't (or shouldn't) explain this? If I was sucking the Hezbollah PR teat I'd flip off complaints and keep Hajj on the payroll.

I wonder why the right is the side that gets most up in arms about the media bias. The media is unable to stop itself from “hurting” the left, as my links showed, but we don’t practically glow about taking first place as underdogs when it occurs.

First, in regards to question 1:

Hezbollah is not winning a PR war. Winning a PR war indicates that the public trusts or likes you more. The public still sees Hezbollah for what they are - terrorists.

Second, in regards to question 1:

On the other hand, many people are upset with Israel, indicating that Israel might be losing its own PR war - as is often the case in war, both sides might lose a PR war. Even giving the starter of the thread the benefit of the doubt that this loss of face for Israel and the IDF in fact might be what the thread was referring to, Israel's losses in the PR war have less to do with the embellished reporting about destruction in Lebanon and more to do with the actual destruction in Lebanon. Assuming that

http://www1.idf.il/DOVER/site/homepage.asp...888&force=1

is actually the IDF's homepage, and not a Hezbollah fake designed to discredit Israel, a press release (from today, 8/9/06) by the IDF indicates that over 200 sorties were flown over Lebanon by IDF warplanes in the last 24 hours. While it is possible all these planes were on scouting missions and discharged no ordinance at anyone in Lebanon, it is also possible that they dropped some bombs or missiles while they were out. In fact, the press release describes how the places were "mainly targeting structures used by Hezbollah terrorists as offices and headquarters, launching grounds and five rockets launchers were also targeted from the air." Some of the bombs might have struck and killed Lebanese civilians. Others in this thread have agreed that undoubtedly civilian deaths are occurring in Lebanon.



Israel is responsible for civilian deaths in Lebanon, just as Hezbollah is responsible for civilian deaths in Israel. The media has reported these actions. This is not fake, not a dream, it is a real war. So again, no matter what the media says, Israel is responsible for civilian deaths in Lebanon. It is this fact of Israel's war in Lebanon, and not the embellished photos, that are making people upset with Israel.

Third, in regard to question 1:

The media is not and has not been one sided in its reporting in regards to this conflict. While the reports coming from Lebanon clearly have been controlled by Hezbollah (if what I read in this thread is correct), Hezbollah does not control the media here in the United States, or in Europe, or in Israel. The media has detailed Hezbollah's attacks against Israel and Israel's attacks against Hezbollah in Lebanon every day for the last month. That is not one-sided reporting.

For example, today's St. Louis Post-Dispatch (my local rag) printed the following: "On Tuesday, Israeli authorities stepped up the evacuation of Kiryat Shemona, the country's northernmost city. Kiryat Shemona has been hit by more than 500 Hezbollah rockets in the past month. The city's mayor, Chaim Barbivai, said the government's plan to relocate 15,000 people overnight was a response to heavy rocket attacks."

Many of the posters on this thread seem to confuse reporting the results of Israel's bombing and shelling in Lebanon as one sided, but the media also reports on Hezbollah's attacks against Israel. While it can be hard to hear that the side you favor has done wrong as well as right, it is important that this information be shared.

To me, the attitude that if the media says something you don't like, you claim bias and falsity is symptomatic of a growing, self-imposed ignorance in the world. The ignorance factor wants to ignore the bad, wanting instead to wrap itself in glossy idealism. This ignorance broadcasts an all right vs. all wrong view onto world events, distorting the reality of mutual wrong and mutual right (to whatever degree). In this situation, it is playing out as: since Israel is good and Hezbollah is bad, anything the media says that Israel is doing wrong (or that could be conceived of as wrong) is a lie and a pro-Hezbollah plot. No matter how much Hezbollah is reported to have done wrong, the presence of anything that suggests Israeli military forces have killed Hezbollah civilians (a reasonable assumption, I might add) is a further example of media bias in this twisted view. It is fine to favor Israel over Hezbollah. But the fact that I might agree with Israel and Israel's social and political system is not a free ticket (from a PR standpoint) for the Israeli military to kill whoever they want or commit military aggression against a weaker neighbor.

Fourth, in regard to question 2:

Being pro-Hezbollah is not left wing, so therefore even if I am wrong about the first question, and the media is pro-Hezbollah, that is not proof of left wing bias in the media. If anything, that is proof of right wing bias, as Hezbollah is a national socialistic military theocracy. Israel is a democracy with free press, free thought, free trade, and individual rights against unnecessary government aggression. Israel is to the left of Hezbollah. Presumptively, left wing bias in the media would favor the actor more to the left - Israel.

That may be your definition of the term, but if Hezbollah actually ends up winning as a result of this PR war (and a ceasefire is the same as a Hezbollah victory), then that's functionally the same as winning the PR war.

Then show the truth...don't embellish or distort. When i open the sports page, I don't want to see a picture of a Jason Giambi homerun with a ball thats on a fire and a bat that shoots sparks after it makes contact. The fact that he hit a homerun is truth...but the embellishment distorts it.



And I as well as others are in agreement. But that doesn't change the fact that photographs passed off as truth and authentic have turned out to be doctored propaganda. I am not making the case for liberal bias but the case against irresponsibility in the media.



This point would only hold up under the assumption that if the tables were turned and Israeli photographers were doctoring and changing photographs that I would not care. To me this is not really an Israel vs. Hezbollah thing but a push for a responsible media that doesn't publish ridiculous propaganda and instead focuses on what can be objectively ascertained.



This statement is completely off the wall and requries a better understanding of American vs. International politics. The situation cannot possibly be analyzed by the American left-right system.

[quote name='Blackstone' post='193761' date='Aug 9 2006, 11:40 AM']
[quote name='stlsophisty' post='193760' date='Aug 9 2006, 12:33 PM']Hezbollah is not winning a PR war. Winning a PR war indicates that the public trusts or likes you more. The public still sees Hezbollah for what they are - terrorists.[/quote]
That may be your definition of the term, but if Hezbollah actually ends up winning as a result of this PR war (and a ceasefire is the same as a Hezbollah victory), then that's functionally the same as winning the PR war.
[/quote]

[quote]
public relations
pl.n. Abbr. PR

1. (used with a sing. verb) The art or science of establishing and promoting a favorable relationship with the public.
2. (used with a pl. verb) The methods and activities employed to establish and promote a favorable relationship with the public.
3. (used with a sing. or pl. verb) The degree of success obtained in achieving a favorable relationship with the public.[/quote]

Source: dictionary.com

I assume you mean, if there is a cease fire then Hezbollah wins the actual war, and that is just as good as winning a PR war? A PR war and an actual war are different, albeit connected, things. In this case, Hezbollah will still not have convinced anyone to like them, so Hezbollah has still lost favorable PR, and the answer to the question posed in this thread is still no.

Moreover, Israel is responsible for their own losses in terms of PR.

We can speculate about who has one or lost the shooting war from a cease fire, which I do below, understanding that it is off topic and answers a fundamentally different question than that asked in this thread:

A cease-fire could be seen as a victory for Hezbollah, but is it really? They would have to stop firing at the Israelis, and probably accept a permanent international troop presence in the area and as such would never be able to attack Israel again. A ceasefire for Hezbollah would mean that Israel is their permanent neighbor, and I doubt the Israelis will withdraw from the ground they have already occupied - so Hezbollah would have lost territory to Israel and the ability to harrass Israel in the future. That sounds like all Israel really wanted in the first place (along with the return of the soldier hostage, which might be part of a cease fire deal). I also suspect that wherever the Israeli troops end up, a thirty foot high concrete wall will be sure to follow.

Israel will only stop this with international intervention, military or diplomatic. Intervention could be a product of negative PR towards Israel (I don't think anyone's sympathy for Hezbollah is going to have anything to do with it). However, the US will not let the UN intervene, and no other major power will intervene. Iran has likely already intervened to the extent that they ever will. But, with America's support, I don't think Israel will halt its offensive unless it is militarily impracticable to continue. So, while it is remotely possible that negative PR could halt Israel's advance, I don't think it will be a big factor in this conflict.


Reply to lederuvdapac:

[quote]Then show the truth...don't embellish or distort.[/quote]

My point remains that the distortion in this case is not what's causing people to be unhappy with Israel, just as your happiness with Giambi's (overpaid) homerun has nothing to do with the embellished photograph. I agree: let the press be free and let the press be responsible enough to stop embellishment - as Reuters was in this case by firing the photographer and pulling the photos. Just don't dodge responsibility for the PR consequences of Israel's actions by blaming embellished reporting.

[quote]I am not making the case for liberal bias but the case against irresponsibility in the media. ... This point would only hold up under the assumption that if the tables were turned and Israeli photographers were doctoring and changing photographs that I would not care. To me this is not really an Israel vs. Hezbollah thing but a push for a responsible media that doesn't publish ridiculous propaganda and instead focuses on what can be objectively ascertained.[/quote]

Well, I would have to agree with you that this should not be a Israel v. Hezbollah thing, but that is how the question for this debate was phrased and the context in which it has been debated is Israel vs. Hezbollah.
[quote]
[quote=stlsophisty]Being pro-Hezbollah is not left wing, so therefore even if I am wrong about the first question, and the media is pro-Hezbollah, that is not proof of left wing bias in the media. If anything, that is proof of right wing bias, as Hezbollah is a national socialistic military theocracy. Israel is a democracy with free press, free thought, free trade, and individual rights against unnecessary government aggression. Israel is to the left of Hezbollah. Presumptively, left wing bias in the media would favor the actor more to the left - Israel.[/quote]

This statement is completely off the wall and requries a better understanding of American vs. International politics. The situation cannot possibly be analyzed by the American left-right system.
[/quote][/quote]

This statement is not off the wall, it reflects the ridiculous underlying assertion that anyone who is liberal could possibly support Hezbollah. I invite you to reread the topic of debate:


[quote]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?[/quote]

So the answer is no, it is not proof of left wing bias in the media. Moreover, the question that started this debate is "completely off the wall and requries a better understanding of American vs. International politics."

Sorry about all the edits, I guess my punishment is that the markup is no longer working.

Actually he is still on the payroll with a different alias, Issam Kobeisi.

That is WRONG period. According to international (i.e. the Geneva Convention) says that Hezbollah is responsible for ALL deaths on both sides. They started a war, hid among civilians, stored weapons among civilians, fired from among civilians, etc. all of which are war-crimes and render those areas subject to military actions. That makes Hezbollah the responsible party, not Israel.

Under US and European Union laws if a person dies during the commission of a crime the criminal is held responsible for the death, regardless of how that person died or who killed them. International law reads the same.

That is real war, not your utopian ideal of war. The fact that the media, international community and you ignore that fact is what is upsetting. And the media's forgeries are making the situation even worse. It makes them accomplice to that crime.

I see I am still the topic of your debate NT...


I never back away from my arguments nighttimer. I told you before, you may take me at my word, you don't have to look between the lines for additional meaning. The preceding line made my point clear enough: The common justification put about by the media is its much vaunted democratic role as a free press, but how free is any organisation that is bought and paid for by vested interests whether they be private individuals like Berlusconi or Murdoch, or just the revenue generated by advertising?

If some one owns you, are you then free?

I would have thought it obvious that I was talking about the media in general, not individuals, that Rupert Murdoch does not own his employee's, only his media corporation but, if you ignore the point I was making and draw your own convenient conclusions, then of course you can argue any point you wish to.


I honestly don't follow your logic here. How is it that pointing out the lack of information portrayed by a dead child in the context of war equates to some form of hypocrisy on my part? Where is the information? Where is the news? A child died. Yes. ITS A WAR!!! How is this news? Does this photograph explain how or why the child died? Does it shed light on what is actually going on? Does it tell me anything what so ever except what a dead child looks like?

The really odd thing is, its illegal to show dead soldiers, but apparently its perfectly acceptable to show dead children.


In the context of 'news'? Very little. What is 'sensation'? a new hat? or the latest movie? These are 'sensations'. A new invention that walks your dog, thats a 'sensation'. Equating dead children to a 'sensation' is almost as awful as smearing their image across the screen.

And in all this, lets not forget the original point! We are shown dead Lebanese children and IDF artillery, but never the opposite. We do not see Israel children being displayed for the worlds morbid curiosity, nor Hezbollah, either in action or dead and so I repeat my original point for you once again.

Any one who thinks this juxtaposition doesn't convey a very clear message must provide a very good explanation as to why not...


So you say, and yet you've consistently refused to address my points in the debate and concentrated rather on my perceived flaws...


Yes its an interesting list, especially in the light of whats been described in this thread.
Lets compare some of the points on the list in comparsion with whats been happening in South Lebanon:

Obviously Reuters failed here since they didn't test the accuracy of the submitted photographs and it took an outsider to notice their mistake, and a mass of bloggers to bring it to the attention of the public. Obviously this ethic has been violated.

...and this one.

...and this one.

...and how about displaying their battered corpses? Does that count as 'special sensitivity'?


Well, that depends on your perception of a liar doesn't it?

There is also a saying (its even quoted in my edition of the Oxford English Dictionary) that goes; a camera never lies... So then what? Everything a camera says, must be the truth?

So it is with journalists. They put forward a perspective, nothing more, but that perspective, under the guise of being 'news', is then elavated to a higher meaning. The subjective represented as objective. An image of a dead child, fake or otherwise, becomes 'the truth'.


Hence the world 'like'.


Your personal proefssional merits were not on my mind NT. It was your style of debate that I was refering to. You seem to be very eager to find and take offence at what was meant as a merely philosophical observation. Perhaps this is a cultural or personal thing between us, I don't know, but where I come from, refering to a profession by a slur is not grounds for an argument and I supect, given the disregard lawyers appear to be held in the USA, this is not unheard of over there either.

Truth be told, I suspect its easier for you to split hairs with me that explain the appalling lack of ethics as displayed by the western media. I've raised many points in this debate and you've largely ignored them all. Do you have any opinions on why western journalists are so greedy for a story, even if its a mediocre story that tells us nothing new, that they'll even submit their integrity to Hezbollah, Hamas, or whom so ever else they are reporting on the Middle East?

Or how about the portrayal of dead children on merely ethical grounds? How does that fit into your notion of professional ethics? What is the news value of a dead child that warrants using his or her dead body as an attention grabber?


I am not in your country nighttimer, nor are we debatting an American issue. This website my have the word 'Americas' in his title, but I can assure you it exists on computer screens all over the planet and there is no supremacy of national identity or culture here. Your cultural baggage is your own and I am not beholden to it any more than you are beholden to mine. We can debate but we do so on equal terms.


..and yet, that is not what I said. Yes I used the word 'liars', but I also explained what I meant by that.



As for the slavery thing. If you can find where I said anything about 'journalists being owned and thereby not free human beings', then I'll admit your right and offer you an abject apology.


I don't see how arguing a democracy has the right of self defence to be a broad leap of logic...



edited to correct a word

I glanced through the Geneva Convention and while I found the "grave breach" reference to kidnapping, it seems that all attacks that endanger civilians are prohibited no matter which side "started the war." It also seems questionable which side started the war - did a kidnapping during a cross border raid justifiably provoke a full scale invasion? Moreover, there is also a moral, as distinct from a legal argument, that Israel's response was not justifiable. However, please point me to the section of the Geneva Convention to which you refer so that I may continue this legal debate with in another thread. But that is not the question of debate in this thread.

Either way, it doesn't matter whether I am write or wrong about the attacks being justified, this is a discussion about perception and the media. In this case, it is people's perception that Israel's killing of Lebanese civilians is wrong that is costing Israel PR - not the embellished reporting. As established earlier, the killing of civilians has occurred and was communicated to the public sufficiently independently of the embellished photographs that it is the cause of Israel's PR loss - not the photographs. And the embellished photographs are not evidence of pro-Hezbollah media bias.



While I am not an attorney, it seems to me that an intentional intervening crime (Israel's attacks against the civilians) ends the original felon's liability for and deaths that occur in the mean time. For example, if A kidnaps B, and police officer P shoots bystander C while trying to rescue B, A is not criminally liable for the death of C. But again, as above, that is not the point of this discussion. The point, to carry the metaphor further, is whether D's negative reaction to P's shooting of C arose from reporter E's embellished photograph showing more blood or D's instinctual revulsion towards P's shooting C.



I thought it was clear that I am arguing that this is not a utopian war, and in real wars, both side tend to kill civilians (intentionally or by accident). In fact, a utopian war would be one in which Israel managed to fight Hezbollah without killing any civilians - or perhaps a utopian war is a contradiction itself. Either way, if you spend some time thinking about this, you'll realize that my argument is dependant on this war not being utopian, otherwise the other debaters are correct and the media is making up all of the destruction caused by Israel, and embellished reporting is the demon it is made out to be.

This tendency for civilians to become casualties has in the current conflict become a reality - the Israeli military is responsible for the deaths of some Lebanese civilians. Whether 1 or 1,000 - I am not going to guess and it does not matter. The point is that these civilian deaths are the reason Israel is losing its own PR war - to whatever extent it is true that Israel is losing a PR war. This is relevant to the topic in discussion because these civilian casualties of Israel's attacks are the reason why Israel is losing the PR war, and not the embellished reporting cited by Sleeper in the beginning of this thread.

I can’t respond with much to this except to say congratulations, you have the acuity to crack a joke. If I may suggest, though, pick up a pair of training wheels from Leder’s Slublog link. There’s some effortless humor on display there, even in the middle of aggrandizing one’s ideology through the specter of persecution being carried out by a conspiratorial, disciplined, and singularly culpable liberal media.

You don't believe they are one in the same? There are countless images to prove this... I can if you would like...

After reading this article again, I was much less convinced than I was the first time I read it.

Here's a sample:


First, while I don't doubt that the BBC has played Hezbollah issued media releases on the radio and television, because I think Hezbollah is a tyrant that controls the media I am inclined to believe that Hezbollah is controlling what the journalists in Lebanon are reporting. The questions for debate, as Jaime reminds us, is whether this embellished reporting is causing Hezbollah to win a PR war and whether this is proof of liberal bias in the media. The answer to both is emphatically no, as my earlier posts explain.

Instead of making the BBC sound bad, the blog linked to above sounds like an attempt to slander the BBC. To accuse the BBC of being a propganda tool for Hezbollah? I would like to see print copies or hear recordings where the BBC does not indicate that something they air was provided in a statement by Hezbollah. These uncited accusations are the lowest form of debate. What possible interest could the British Government (which funds the BBC) have in promoting Hezbollah? The motivation is absent.

Moreover, anyone who thinks Israel's attack on Lebanon won't actually drum up support for Al Qaeda probably hasn't thought it through all the way. For example, the Coalition's invasion of Iraq in 2003 to oust Saddam Hussein has arguably strengthened Al Qaeda.

QUOTE

Time magazine contributor Christopher Allbritton, casually mentioned in the middle of a posting: "To the south, along the curve of the coast, Hezbollah is launching Katyushas, but I'm loathe to say too much about them. The Party of God has a copy of every journalist's passport, and they've already hassled a number of us and threatened one."

These are good example of why [i]to trust the media. The first article is about a CNN contributor freely discussing Hezbollah control of the media in Lebanon on a Washington Post hosted TV call-in program. The second is the same - a Time contributor talking about Hezbollah's corruption and tyrannical control. These are examples of the news media doing its job and exposing their own biases - to aid in critical interpretation of the news.

There is no way to spin these reports into evidence of the media's (counterintuitive) pro-Hezbollah bent. Even if the reports of Hezbollah control are true (which I don't doubt) - they actually cut against evidence of bias in the media against Israel. The media in this case is reporting on Hezbollah's control so that the truth comes out about Hezbollah's tyrannical hold on Lebanon while portraying Hezbollah in an anti-Free Speech light.



Finally, this cartoon amply captures how Israel's PR has been hurt by their military actions in Lebanon. The damage to Israel's PR is not from the embellished reporting, but from the fact negative consequence of Israel's war in Lebanon.

----------------

Edited to add link to Reuters article from just now: (just saw this one)

Iranians among Hizbollah combat dead: TV

Take note of the photo of the soldiers appearing fascist...
Also note that every statement in the article is attributed, and clearly links Hezbollah to terror and Iran. I don't see how this can be considered pro-Hezbollah.

I am not an attorney either but maybe we should consult one. I choose a note Harvard Law Professor by the name of Alan Dershowitz

New York - The noted Harvard Law Professor, Alan Dershowitz, has pointed out that US citizens should be made aware of the fact that, under US law, the terrorist group Hizballah would be responsible for and charged with any deaths suffered by civilians whom they are using as human shields as would be any criminal using hostages who are killed in a police raid. Dershowitz writes, "A bank robber who takes a teller hostage and fires at police from behind his human shield is guilty of murder if they, in an effort to stop the robber from shooting, accidentally kill the hostage. The same should be true of terrorists who use civilians as shields from behind whom they fire their rockets?" (Wall Street Journal, July 19).

Additionally, "Under the law, criminals who use human shields are responsible for the deaths of the shields, even if the bullet that kills them came from the gun of a policeman." (Jerusalem Post, July 22).

Dershowitz added, that, to make matters worse, " Hizballah was preventing civilians - who had been repeatedly warned by Israel to leave the battle zone - from moving out of harm's way. Hizballah sympathizers were shown on TV defiantly tearing up the Israeli leaflets, as if to say 'we're staying' Hizballah had refused to build bomb shelters for ordinary civilians - only for their own leaders. Hizballah knew (and Israel didn't) that children were in the so-called safe house. That is why it deliberately used the safe house as a shield behind which to fire rockets at Israel. Hizballah used its rocket launchers as 'bait' to induce Israel to fire at them in order to increase the chances that Israel's rocket would misfire and hit the 'safe house'. It was a perfect plan. Leaders of Hizballah knew it could count on the international community to finish its dirty work by condemning Israel, rather than Hezbollah for the deaths caused deliberately by Hizballah" (FrontPage Magazine.com, August 1).

[/i]"As Alan Dershowitz says, American law clearly holds the bank robber who brings about the death of his hostage by using him as a human shield responsible for murder. It does not hold the policeman who inadvertently killed a hostage responsible for murder or for any lesser crime. The same clear logic should apply to Hizballah's use of Lebanese civilians as human shields. It is not also against US law, but Hizballah's basing of its forces, rocket launchers and munitions in civilian homes and apartment buildings are also clearly war crimes under Protocol I (1977) to the Geneva Convention, Article 51(7).

"The neglect and silence over Hizballah's war crime of using human shields is not only morally indefensible but it also harms both Israel and the United States in their war on Islamist terrorist organizations. It assists terrorists throughout the world because it encourages and rewards Hizballah's use of this evil tactic and war crime. If the upshot of Hizballah's use of Lebanese civilians as human shields is that Israel is condemned and inhibited in its military campaign as a result, then terrorists everywhere have won a great victory and have every incentive to use this tactic again and again. The net result of this can only be the use of more human shields and thus the deaths of more innocent civilians." [i]

Paragraph 7,Article 51, of Protocol I states: The presence or movements of the civilian population or individual civilians shall not be used to render certain points or areas immune from military operations, in particular in attempts to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield, favour or impede military operations. The Parties to the conflict shall not direct the movement of the civilian population or individual civilians in order to attempt to shield military objectives from attacks or to shield military operations.

' did a kidnapping during a cross border raid justifiably provoke a full scale invasion?' Short answer absolutely yes it does, under Article 51 of the UN Charter it's called self-defense and when a country is invaded and their citizens murdered that is called an act of war. The defending country can decide how to respond. There is no such thing as an intervening crime when responding to an attack.

But since the media has done it's level best to create one where none exist they are aiding and abetting war-crimes. And I think that we have more than proved that the media has deliberately lied and mislead the public.

This is a judgment call. There was a famous Pulitzer Prize winning photograph of a Oklahoma City firefighter hold the bloody, battered body of a child pulled from the rubble of the Murrah Building. Some newspapers did not publish the photograph due to itls graphic and unsettling nature. Three-year-old Baylee Almon would later die of her injuries.

Oklahoma City

What does it gain any newspaper or television program to show a dead baby? Maybe it is lurid sensationalism. Maybe it's a way to show what the human toll of terrorism is. It's purely subjective. Maybe I would run a photograph of a dead child and maybe you wouldn't Moif. It all depends.

Here's what the Society of Professional Journalists say about using such images.

" It's a balancing of sometimes competing values, in this case primarily 'seek the truth and report it,' which would argue for putting the whole thing out there, and 'minimize harm,' which would argue that it could do harm to the family of the victims to show the brutal slaying," said Gary Hill, chairman of the ethics committee for Society of Professional Journalists. "The flip side of that is - especially true in a democracy - that the citizens need to know the truth and need to know the specifics of what happened."

I agree with Hill. The public's right to know has to be balanced with the public's right not to be offended. Sometimes people need to see just what happens when you drop bombs on human beings and what it does to them. Sometimes you have to make people watch the unwatchable. Not for shock value but because they need to wake up.

The difference is.. That fireman didn't parade that girls body up and down the street for 15-20 minutes making sure as many cameras could get her in it's lens.

Let me understand this. Reuters' editors allowed very obvious photoshopped photos to run on their wire service. I have to believe that by the time a person makes it to being an editor that they have seen literally tens of thousands of pictures and in this day and age could tell without any doubt those that had be altered in such an obvious manner. So either the editor deliberately and with malice and forethought sought to publish a photograph they knew to be tampered with or just didn't care - really doesn't matter which one.

We do not have to prove anything, it is not our reputation on the line. Rather it is their reputation, or more likely alleged reputation. Reporters like government employees must avoid the appearance of impropriety and Reuters, AP, etc. have failed and now it's up to THEM to prove that it was not on purpose. We can not read their minds so they have to convince us (the public) that they are merely incompetent instead of malice.

Thats true, though I wasn't so much thinking of the web, but rather the conduct of one's own people, though again, I don't suppose the media really belongs to any one side... When I was in the military we were given lessons on how to conduct ourselves with regards to such things and I seem to recall that the dead were to be treated with the same respect as the living. Such things as how to treat prisoners were always a running point of debate in my unit, especially when the war in the Balkans started up.

I tried to look up the points I was thinking of but the closest thing I can find is this:
Link.


Well, I'd have to disagree and say the operative words were 'Test the accuracy of information'... but I'll accept your point as equally valid given you have the professional edge over me.


I wouldn't. Not unless the image was of profound importance to the public's understanding of the event being reported. Having said that though, then I would probably agree the Oklahoma bombing was just such an event, but Qana wasn't. The difference lies in the frequency. Oklahoma was a deliberate terrorist attack and a single event and the death of the child in the photograph shows the ultimate price of that event. Qana on the other hand was not a deliberate murder, nor was it especially unique in the course of the conflict.

I'd like to answer this further, but speaking of children I have two of them here fighting in the back ground. Thanks for the debate NT.

I have looked at the embellished photo again, and I have to say that I find it amazing how much fuss is being made over this. Apart from the fact that I hadn't seen this photo before (not on the internet, nor in the Dutch media), I don't think it would have any impact on me. So there is a bunch smoke added extra, but is the embellished photo so much different than the original photo? Would it really have changed other people's opinion drastically about this war? In all honesty I do not think so. (Apart from that, I have to admit that embellishing a photo is something that should never occur. I think Reuters has solved this problem in a right way by firing the photographer and removing the picture.)

Is there an anti-Israel bias in the media? I can only speak from my Dutch perspective and I have to say that I cannot find any bias in the stories of the Dutch media. In my opinion the reporting is nicely balanced: normally we hear first what's been happening on the war-front in Lebanon followed by a report what happened in Israel. One thing is obvious: the complete contempt for Hezbollah in the media. Hezbollah gets all the blame for starting this war (which of course is correct), but that doesn't mean that the media shouldn't be critical about the way Israel is carrying out this war. (too much civilian deaths is something hard to accept for a lot of people, no matter where a war occurs or whose fighting eachother, it is not a form of bias).

Questions for debate:

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

The vast majority of the people in the western world do not like Hezbollah and probably they never will. It is impossible for Hezbollah to win a "PR war". What is possible is that Israel could inflict PR damage on itself and loose sympathy by the way they are handling the war.

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

Left wing bias!?!?! Again, Sleeper, what do you mean by this? Holland is more "left-wing" than the U.S. will ever be, but, as I told you before, our media is not taking sides with Hezbollah (as a matter of fact it clearly stresses the wickedness of this group), nor against Israel. It is just showing the people what is happening in that part of the world.

Actually, it matters quite a bit. One means you are allowing deliberate tampering with a photo image and the other is just doing your job as a editor badly.

All things considered Adnan Hajj's tampered photo is pretty mundane. Smoke billowing from buildings isn't as viscerally grabbing as a mother weeping over a dead child or bullet holes in a wall. But even if Hajj is a tool working for Hezbollah, the $60 question that nobody seems to be able to answer is why Reuters
would stake their reputation of a badly enhanced photograph. How does adding more smoke sway public opinion away from Israel and toward Hezbollah?



To quote Tonto, "What do you mean, we, kimosabee?" Reuters and the Associate Press does not have to prove anything to "us." The "public" is not monolithic and what so obviously outrages a handful of individuals is not a cause for consternation for the disinterested masses.

What would you like loreng59? A personal explanation followed by a signed written apology?

These incidents have demonstrated a level of carelessness by some mainstream media outlets, but to make the leap in logic that it follows they are deliberately biased against Israel does not necessarily follow. To go back to something Moif brought up, perhaps too many news outlets rely upon the shock value of a graphic photograph rather than the well-written sentence that explains the facts and conveys a vivid mental image.

In this age where EVERY word and EVERY image in the media can be examined, deconstructed and parsed for signs of bias, falsehoods, hidden agendas and deception, it's real easy for self-appointed media watchdogs to flip the script and play "gotcha."

What this thread has done has done is expose how lax some media outlets have been in their oversight processing. What it hasn't proven is a dark conspiracy existing between terrorists in Lebanon and editors working in offices in the Western world.