What Bias? (II)

Well, the credibility of the mainstream media took another big hit over the weekend. It started when Little Green Footballs (once again) presented evidence of forgery; this time in a Reuters photograph depicting the Israeli bombing of Bierut. A blogswarm ensued, and the propagandist photographer (Adnan Hajj) has since been fired. It turns out he has probably altered and/or staged several photos which paint Israel in a bad light. And now it seems the entire Reuters agency is somewhat complicit.

It was great internet viewing reminiscent of election night. It didn't take long for Michelle Malkin, Powerline, Drudge Report, National Review and many others to run with this. Although it's now hard to appreciate the gradual unfolding of the event (what with all the updates on the post), it all started here. Read through some of the comments to get a sense of how things progressed. BTW, You may have a little trouble with the link, since LGF's site remains sluggish due to increased traffic. They even altered their page design in an attempt to try to maximize visits.

For a brief summary of some of the events (with links), The American Thinker has this article:

"The blogosphere has been doing the work that Reuters’ photo editors didn’t, and has been examining the nearly 350 pictures from Mr. Hajj that have been distributed to the worldwide media by Reuters. Already other examples have been shown to be faked. The Jawa Report shows an Israeli jet firing a defensive round Photoshopped into an attack, for example.

Mr. Hajj was representing Reuters on the ground at Qana, where severe doubts have been raised about the authenticity of his work...

There can be no denying by Reuters that its organization is deeply flawed in terms of its ability to enforce elementary quality standards. And any client of Reuters which continues to accept photographic material from it is on notice that the organization is unable to stand behind the integrity of its photojournalism, and that it does not plan to do anything about the organizational failure to which it has admitted.

Apparently, these same editors are still unable to detect the obvious problems the outside analysts of the blogosphere have already uncovered. Any outside observer can justifiably conclude that a breakdown in basic quality assurance standards has occurred, and that the organization is unable to correct itself."

Great stuff from the new media. I will never again simply accept a Reuters photo for face value.

Update: Reuters continues to be picked apart by bloggers.