Al-Reuters: Rabbits In The Headlights

Al-Reuters, also officially screwed. The bastards are now in the spotlight instead of focussing it on the Jews, Bush, or anyone else they've decided to go after. And with the Bloghad officially declared...let's have a look at how Al-Reuters' (and many other MSM outlets) already poor credibility is plummeting downwards to absolute rock bottom.

Well for a start, there's newly designated and then fired 'Freelancer' Adnan Hajj, he of Qana fame. Power Line has another Hajj-related story, this time of a destroyed building which has been 'bombed last night' by those nasty old Jooooz on both July 24th and August 5th. My Pet Jawa has another, the second mentioned by Reuters in their statement.

However I think the main story here isnt Hajj's dubious photgoraphy but the fact that what is blatantly the same site has been accepted as two different ones by Reuters without even the slightest attempt at factchecking, and that Photoshop edits of quite breathtaking blatancy have ALL gone out over the wires with amti-Israeli propaganda captioning to match.

Global Picture Editor Tom Szlukovenyi says:

“There is no graver breach of Reuters standards for our photographers than the deliberate manipulation of an image. Reuters has zero tolerance for any doctoring of pictures and constantly reminds its photographers, both staff and freelance, of this strict and unalterable policy.”

Staging false photos remains perfectly acceptable though, needless to say. And hey, look here's the infamous rescue worker 'Green Helmet' - not a senior Hezbollah operative ordering the MSM's representatives around like puppets on a string at all, honest - in his natural habitat, pulling people who may be actual rescue workers away from bodies on a stretchers so photographers can get a better shot, eleven days after he spontaneously rushed around making photo-ops at Qana. (UPDATE: and here is again bless his hardworking little heart, schmoozing with the revolting John Simpson on BBC News...)

However, it isnt just old Adnan...Drinking From Home presents the unluckiest homeowner in Beirut - who is pictured by a Reuters photographer and an Associated Press photographer in the same outfit supposedly on both July 22nd and August 5th wailing about the destruction of her Beirut home - both ended up on Yahoo News. As you will see, Al-Beeb was using the same picture twice on the same page accompanied by a Beeboid 'report' (which is simply the supposedly impartial 'reporter' stating that there is no point in the Israelis bombing Beirut presumably because Hezbollah don't actually exist in his freaky purple-skied world) until someone picked up on the fact that it was circulating the Blogs and it has now been stealth edited in true Stalinist BBC style.

Now one of two things happened here. Either AP and Reuters were sent the photos on separate dates by their photographers, and one of them lied about its provenance - I should point out however that it is unclear from DFH's report whether either AP or Reuters presented the photos on double occasions as Yahoo did - or Yahoo simply lifted two separately filed images to make its own reports.

If the former, one of the photographers (Hussein Malla from AP or Issam Kobiesi from Reuters) should be fired as Hajj has been by Reuters, and the News Editors from Yahoo should stand up and admit they were either incompetent or deliberately complicit in perpetrating anti-Jewish propaganda. In the latter case however the photographers are blameless and it is someone in Yahoo News who has been incompetent or complicit to a degree which should in either case lead to their dismissal.

There is no excuse for this. None at all. These people - Reuters, the BBC, Yahoo News, have forgotten that their chosen professions are not just a job, they are a vocation. Carrying the News is an awesome responsibility, and should never be abused for purposes of crass propaganda.

So here's me, DSD. Calling the wrath of the Bloggers down on the heads of Tom Szlukovenyi from Reuters, incompetent or lying pro-terrorist bastard, I dont care. Calling down the wrath of the Bloggers on the Chief Editor of Yahoo News, who is apparently the exotically named Srinjia Srinivasan.

Email and phone Reuters, email and phone Yahoo. Complain, bluster, threaten to pull your Yahoo accounts if you have them or use their Mailing service or Messenger. Bombard the papers - the local ones if need be as the big papers sure as hell still wont carry the story...

This is a war. It may be merely a war of words, but in its own way it could be just as important to our future as the one Israel is fighting on the ground. For far too long we have let the forces of evil ranged against us set the ground for the great debates of our time - now its time to take that ground back.

(ADDENDUM): A commenter at Crush Liberalism reminds us that it was a Reuters camera crew supposedly on hand to get the scoop on the Haditha massacre-that-wasnt...