Posted on 08/14/2006 2:01:05 PM PDT by neverdem
Every historic moment has its iconic image.
Vietnam had Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong on the street; the Oklahoma City bombing had a fireman holding a child in his arms; Abu Ghraib had the hooded torture victim standing on a box.
And today, the Israeli-Hezbollah war has Qana — the Lebanese village where Israeli rockets killed civilians, including 16 children (down from the initially reported 27).
Or did they?
The blogosphere has been buzzing the past several days about doctored photographs, faked footage and even the possibility that Qana was manipulated, if not orchestrated, by Hezbollah.
True or false? That seems increasingly to be a question for news consumers, who have to be detectives as they digest the day’s headlines and cutlines.
In the past week, for instance, at least two photos shot in Lebanon and distributed by Reuters were determined to have been doctored.
Best known of the two is an image showing black smoke plumes allegedly caused by an Israeli strike on south Beirut.
The photo, snapped and enhanced by freelance photographer Adnan Hajj, was altered to make damage from the strike seem much worse than it was, as revealed by blogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs.
Subsequently, Reuters ended its relationship with Hajj and shut down his photo archive of more than 900 images. The news agency acknowledged that at least one other Hajj photo had been doctored to show three flares dropping from an Israeli jet instead of just one.
These distortions may not rise to the level of wholesale deceit, but they are intentionally misleading and prejudicial toward Israel at a time when the stakes are lethal.
Meanwhile, others are questioning whether the Qana tragedy might have been staged by Hezbollah, based on various perceived inconsistencies.
Thus are conspiracy theories born...
(Excerpt) Read more at kansascity.com ...
I gather that if you can spell your own name, you can write for the Kansas City Star.
Like the one Walter Duranty used to cover up Stalin's crimes?
The tools have nothing to do with it. The drive to lie and deceive and to generate propaganda has everything to do with it.
It's not the typewriter, it's the typist. Lincoln wrote the Gettysburg Address on the back of an envelope. The important thing, whether in pictures or in words, is for the reporting to be truthful and unbiased. We are miles away from either.
He was hooded and standing on a box, but he was not tortured. Geez.
Oh give me a break...TORTURE....what happened to the NAM POW's...now that was torture...this is nothing more than a walk in a park....
the KC star rejects Muslims like Qadaffi. Or Khadafi. Or Kadaffi. Whatever his name is.
As if Ted Kennedy hasn't been drunk and standing with a lampshade on his head.
I don't know. Other than the "conspiracy theory" crack, I thought this was a pretty sober take from the MSM.
I don't know. Other than the "conspiracy theory" crack, I thought this was a pretty sober take from the MSM.
It was intitially reported at 54 and not 27 as she stated.
Vietnam had Gen. Nguyen Ngoc Loan executing a Viet Cong on the street; the Oklahoma City bombing had a fireman holding a child in his arms; Abu Ghraib had the hooded torture victim standing on a box.
The execution was staged for the media.
And the arab press had already run fake pictures of abuse by the time the Abu Ghraib photos were released to the press by the family of one of the perps.
To the media, that WAS torture.
I find Kathleen Parker to be a pretty good writer. Folks often carp about the smallest details, but she writes with common sense, IMHO.
"How can citizens make honest judgments about events — whether the war on terror, the war in Iraq or Israel’s response to Hezbollah — if they can’t rely on news from the front?"
I thought that sentence explained the main thrust of the column. From reading the thread's comments, I doubt most folks read the whole column.
Eddie Adams of AP, back when a man could have a conscience and work for AP.
d.o.l.
Criminal Number 18F
That would be a hooded insurgent terrorist combatant.
Calls into question a lot of things the media prints doesn't it? Of course, I am not the least bit surprised.
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