Smoke Gets in Your Eyes Gate

Here's today's treeware column on Reutersgate, with some links. It pretty much says everything I wanted to say on the matter, but I have added in some commentary which didn't make it into the paper for lack of space. Note that our Catherine Farley's superb graphic renderings of how the photos were doctored are not online.

Turned out that where there was too much smoke, there was also fire.

For the past four days, ever since the virulently anti-Muslim/Arab website Little Green Footballs nailed the news agency Reuters for its doctored photo of a smouldering Beirut, the right-wing blogosphere has been crowing about how it has once again shot down the mainstream media (MSM).

This time, the direct hit was on Lebanese freelancer Adnan Hajj, who has been shooting for the British agency since 1993.

What the guy did is moronic. Not only did he clumsily manipulate one photo to increase billowing black smoke where there was plenty to begin with (plus he cloned buildings), he did it when there were many scenes of actual - and worse - devastation available.

In doing so, he compromised Reuters - already derided by the right as "al-Reuters" for its reluctance to use the word "terrorist" - and, by extension, all photojournalists risking their lives in war zones. At the same time, he has given more ammunition to the right-wing flogosphere to complain of media bias, and to shift the story away from the carnage in Lebanon to debates over Photoshopped images and staged pictures.

Worse, this all but ensures that any and all images of civilian casualties or the blasting of infrastructure will be called into question - while the actual deaths and destruction won't.

The smoke picture, transmitted Friday and picked up by media around the world (but not the Star), was uncovered Saturday by a tip to Little Green Footballs overlord Charles Johnson, the blogger credited with bringing down CBS' Dan Rather over his 2004 report on U.S. President George W. Bush's service record - or lack of it - during the Vietnam War.

Note that somehow Johnson is now getting all the credit for this, although I don't think he deserves it. This analysis explains why. Anyway ...

From there, it spread through the right-wing blogosphere that animated it, analyzed it, dissected it and tore it apart.

Feeling the heat, Reuters issued a 'Picture Kill' later that day, warning its clients that the photo had been "improperly" edited. Then, on Sunday, Reuters announced it was terminating its relationship with Hajj.

"This represents a serious breach of Reuters' standards," the company said.

Explained spokesperson Moira Whittle: "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."

Except that on Monday, blogger Rusty Shackleford of The Jawa Report turned up a second doctored Hajj photo.

Taken Aug. 2, it shows an Israeli F-16 firing three flares as bombs are dropped on the Lebanese town of Nabatiyeh. Trouble is, the fighter jet actually fired one flare.

On Monday, Hajj was toasted, as were all 920 photos he had shot for Reuters.

(The Star has used four Hajj photos since the war began. The most recent was July 25. None of the photos used by the Star is considered suspicious by Reuters. Our website, www.thestar.com, does not carry Reuters photos.)

Now, this has become "Reutersgate." Or, as Michelle Malkin, a frequent Fox News commentator put it, "Picture Kill is a watershed moment and we won't let the MSM forget it."

Believe it.

Since Hajj's work was discredited, the right-wing blogosphere has shifted into high gear, seeking out other potential instances of photo manipulation. Many are examining images from Qana, the site of an Israeli bombing last week where at least 28 civilians were killed. Others are digging into events in Gaza, claiming images from that Israeli-Palestinian conflict have been staged or edited for the cameras. Right-wing bloggers have dubbed that "Pallywood."

Meanwhile, with very few exceptions, the left/liberal blogosphere remains silent. Not just about "Reutersgate," but also about the Israel-Lebanon conflict.

A couple of progressive writers who have addressed the photo issue have pointed out that the "angrysphere" is quick to condemn the errors of the MSM but loathe to own up to when it fakes the photos or quotes.

For the best take on that, check out Glenn Grunwald Greenwald on Salon here. He talks about, to name one example, the manipulation of an old photo of former Democratic presidential contender John Kerry which made it seem he shared a stage with Jane Fonda during anti-war rally in the Vietnam era.

But that's no defence for the Reuters screw-up, for which there is no excuse.

Any good photo editor should have spotted that fakery.

Once again, this demonstrates the increasing influence of the blogosphere whose members, in the pre-Internet days, would have had to settle for yelling at their TVs or writing letters to editors. Now they have the tools to instantly push back and make the media pay attention.

If only they showed as much compassion for the civilians who may have suffered when that bomb dropped on Beirut as they did passion when Reuters dropped its bomb on the wires.

Well, I got a lot of angry email for that kicker, much of it saying the exact same thing. I'm not objective, the Lebanese casualties are irrelevant and, best of all, where do I get the idea that Little Green Footballs is racist?

Hunh.

If you want to read a lot of the Keyboard Kommandos takes on it, commenter ''Arik,'' an LGF devotee, was obsessed with this story over the weekend and posted a whole bunch of links on this thread here. Scroll down and click away. Read how all these bloggers spend so much time proving a little smoke was added to a photo and then go nuts trying to extend it to all the media coverage coming from north of the Israel-Lebanon border.

(That said, news photos should never ever be manipulated.)

Indeed, if you want to know how I truly feel about what LFWwatch has dubbed "slightlymoresmokegate,'' read this comment on Sadly No!

They added more smoke. Simple fact. Therefore by logical extrapolation Qana was staged. Hezbollah killed those children with rat poison, then beat their small corpses into bloody messes. By further extrapolation the pics of the girls writing on the artilery shells are clearly fake as well. Photos of an ambulance with a hole blow in the dead center of the cross? Also faked, or staged.
The enemies of a peaceful Israel will stoop to any low in order to make Israel look bad. The media is slanted against Isreal, plain and simple. The photographer that modified that pic proves it. He is a Hezbollah sympathizer, and he was formally trained by the PR wing of that organization. The same PR organization that clearly has launched such a successful and powerful campaign on the internet to hijack the comments of any blogs that bring up the issue.

This one photo proves it all. Enough said.

Not quite: The rightwing flogopshere's contention that the MSM haven't reported this is CRAP. It's just that we don't sit in our basements all day and night obsessing. The blogosphere pointed this out. It got fixed. We reported on it. The end.

As if.

UPPITY DATE: Well, at least he has his own blog instead of just kommandeering my comments, unlike some people.

Return fire

An update on Crossfire, a post a few weeks ago that referenced a damning report by Alison Weirs of If Americans Knew, whose mission is "to inform and educate the American public on issues of major significance that are unreported, underreported, or misreported in the American media." (From the look of it, right now it's a single issue mission -- and that issue is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.)

Weirs' damning report accused AP (Associated Press) of erasing a video of an Israeli soldier deliberately and randomly shooting a Palestinian boy. (More here, with video.)

When I contacted an AP spokesperson, he all but dismissed Weirs' charges. But, to be honest, he didn't do so as quickly as I would have thought he would have considering that the issue was out there. It took a day to get a statement. What's more, he didn't deny everything outright. You can read AP's statement on my original Crossfire post.

Yesterday I heard from Weirs who emailed:

It is not surprising that AP, which at first refused to comment, is now denying any misbehavior. When was the last time we heard a powerful institution admit, without immense outside pressure, that it had done something wrong? Almost all criminals cry that they didn’t do it. Some did. Claiming innocence does not make one innocent.

So now people have two versions to consider:

   1. My version, based on interviews with eyewitnesses (some on film) conducted in Balata and Nablus two weeks after the event, and
 

    2. The version now advanced by AP through Executive Editor Kathleen Carroll, based on we’re-not-told-what evidence acquired over a year after the event, from New York.

The first step is to consider both of these versions carefully, and not automatically accept AP’s version, merely because it is the “establishment” one. I hope that people will not equate power with truth and will not automatically or unconsciously favor an institution over an individual. I hope that people will not automatically believe a corporation over a whistle-blower. I hope that AP’s enormous power and the advantages a journalist may gain from allying with it will not cause commentators to give AP’s assertions greater weight than mine.

In your evaluation, please keep in mind that I had little to gain from writing my article, and no reason to make things up. I have had friends who have been employed by AP and I have long held many AP journalists in high regard. I have no reason to be “anti-AP”, and am not. Moreover, I knew that in writing my article I was taking on a powerful organization with considerable influence and immense resources. Nevertheless, it seemed important to expose the facts I had discovered.

Her missive is much too long to post in its entirety here. I asked if she might put it up on her website so that I could link to it. She did. So here's the link. She provides a point-by-point refutation of the AP statement given to me. Says Weirs:

AP’s power to inform, or to misinform, the American public is truly gargantuan. It is therefore profoundly important that its practices be transparent, that it be open and responsive when there is evidence that its coverage is flawed, and that it abide by its own statement of principles: “Any time a question is raised about any aspect of our work, it should be taken seriously.”

In 1914, AP’s general manager wrote: “I have no thought of saying The Associated Press is perfect. The frailties of human nature attach to it...the thing it is striving for is a truthful, unbiased report of the world’s happenings ... ethical in the highest degree.”

I applaud this shining statement, and deeply hope that AP’s members will hold AP to it.

Read it. Look at the video. Judge for yourself.

 

We may be the dead tree industry but we ain't dead yet

The Star's Ideas editor Peter Scowen today sent out this New Yorker essay on our internal email system. It's about how newspapers, as I was saying yesterday, are far from writing their own obits, despite the blogma of many members of the pajamahadeen.

(W)hile the Net has eroded newspapers’ advantage in disseminating news, it has expanded their reach and influence. The Washinton Post, despite its drop in circulation, attracted more than eight million readers to its Web site in February, an increase of nearly three million over the same time last year. Papers may not have figured out how to maximize the monetary potential of this shift, but online advertising already earns them two billion dollars a year.

The real danger is that the popular conviction that papers are doomed may cause owners and shareholders to prefer the cash-cow approach, accepting eventual oblivion while continuing to harvest billions of dollars in profits, largely through cost-cutting. Settling for a tolerable short-term future, newspapers could end up writing themselves out of the long-term one. Yet it’s also clear that this moment of supposed doom represents a sizable opportunity for newspapers, a chance to reinvigorate their product and, eventually, improve the economics of their business. Seizing that opportunity is going to require new investment, not penny-pinching. Established media—radio, the movies, television—haven’t vanished when new forms have come along. They’ve adapted by playing to their distinctive strengths. (For most newspapers, this will mean abandoning things that are ubiquitous on the Internet, like stock tables and wire stories, and investing in content they can own, like serious local coverage and in-depth reporting.) Newspapers, thanks to the efficiency with which they’ve managed themselves in recent years, still have the time and money to save themselves. Instead of slowly sinking, why not steer around the iceberg?

I may be shooting myself in the foot here but I have always felt that advertising online -- at least much of it -- is an annoyance. That's why many of us use pop-up blockers and the like to avoid it. But newspaper advertising is different. It doesn't suck up your time. If you're not interested in cars, don't look at the car ads. It's as simple as that.

The strength -- and weakness -- of online advertising is that it only brings to your attention what it is you are looking for if you search for it. Sometimes, when flipping through the papers, I see stuff I never knew existed and absolutely had to run out, clipped ad in hand, to get it. (Like my fancy new iPod headphones, for example.) There's more serendipity, lesss wasted time -- plus it's local.

The thing is, most newspaper innovations in the past century have been more about serving advertisers, not readers. Big cars and condo sections, for example. Sure, we have editorial in there, and some very fine editorial at that. But it's all about bringing more eyeballs to the ads, and targeting those ads to people in the market for those goods.

In any aspect of life or business, you gotta adapt or die. As long as the short termer greedheads keep their grubby mitts off the newspaper industry and allow it to not just ''steer around the iceberg'' but also to scale it and plant a flag on top of it, we're going to be alright.

 
   

One more reason for the right to back the so-called liberal media

The New York Times has been nabbed again, caught for the second time this week in an egregious error.

On Saturday it said it had misidentified a man featured in the iconic "hooded inmate" photograph from Abu Ghraib prison in Iraq. Today it discloses that a woman it profiled on March 8 is not, in fact, a victim of Hurricane Katrina--and was arrested for fraud and grand larceny yesterday.

If only the Times were as forthcoming about its mistakes with much farther reaching consequences.

Silent running

Today's black-line front-pager in the Globe and Mail was about how Conservative MPs and cabinet ministers have been all but muzzled.

OTTAWA — Prime Minister Stephen Harper has imposed central control over all information and comments to the public issued by government officials and even cabinet ministers, directing them to have everything cleared by the Prime Minister's Office, according to an internal e-mail and government sources.

The orders, described in an e-mail to bureaucrats, indicate that ministers have been told to avoid talking about the direction of the government, and that the government wants them to be less accessible to the news media. And all government officials are instructed to avoid speaking about anything other than the five priorities outlined in the Conservative campaign.

Now I ask you: How dull is this government gonna be if colourful and freely-elected MPs like Myron Thompson have to stay on the newly-dictated PMO-controlled message track? Will the Wild Rose of the West protest how his freedom of expression rights have been curtailed by his leader? Will he be able to toe the party line -- or will he stick his toe into his maw again?

To be honest, the Globe could be torquing this, especially since the ''internal email'' directs MPs to focus on the campaign priorities. What's wrong with that?

Of course it makes sense for the PMO to do this, considering some of the, er, characters in caucus. But to shut down everything? Even those blogging Conservative MPs -- Monte Solberg, Garth Turner, Chuck Strahl to name three -- have turned off the taps.

I bet this has the editors of Frank magazine upset: So much for their much-hoped for revival of the old "Just off the Turnip Truck'' feature from them good old Reform Party days.

If the mainstream media pack resumes its baying and whining about this, all I can say is, you know what? You can't always expect the stories to come at you on the Ottawa press building's p.a. system. 

The upside for the rest of us is never having to hear much from this guy again.

Foreign correspondence course

At every event held by the Canadian Journalists for Free Expression or PEN Canada, I encounter men and women who had to leave their countries, unable to make a living there anymore for fear of stepping on government, corporate or organized crime toes.

Here in Canada, the worst that can happen to you is you get to spend long, torturous days in court, usually while your media organization foots the bill.

In other places, you can get kidnapped or killed.

Which is why, on the CJFE site for example, you'll find a listing for Journalists in Exile. Many of these people, terrific reporters, are forced to abandon their craft here because they can't find jobs for whatever reason. Mostly there's a language barrier. But there could be other impediments: primarily a lack of familiarity with the turf or the technology.

The tragedy is, most Canadian media would benefit from these voices which would add to our coverage of events locally and overseas. But there is little chance for them to do anything but drive cabs, clean offices or flip burgers.

And so PEN's new academic program, in conjunction with Sheridan College, to train these writers comes as great news. (PDF file here, under "News & Events.")

The Canadian Journalism for Internationally Trained Writers certificate will be practical in nature and offer such courses as writing for the freelance market, reinventing your writing career in Canada as well as courses in Canadian literature and history. There will also be an internship offered for 14 weeks during the third semester of the program.

I don't normally promote these sorts of things - and I have no intention of using this blog as a journalism community bulletin board - but, because I have met so many of these writers and journalists (and cartoonists) in exile, and have heard their stories, I could not ignore this.

Holes in heads

My feelings about sports journalism notwithstanding, this is an outrage:

KAPOLEI, Hawaii — The Associated Press was denied credentials to cover the LPGA Fields Open tournament Wednesday in a dispute over new restrictions on use of its stories and photos.

<SNIP>

"While the LPGA's revised terms don't limit access, they severely limit our use of our own photos," (AP assistant general counsel Dave) Tomlin said. "If we ever wanted to use an AP photo from an LPGA event for anything but illustration of a news story about that particular event, we'd have to ask for permission. I'm not aware of any other league that has demanded such a condition for obtaining credentials. And LPGA's demand for unlimited free use of our LPGA photos and stories is just as unprecedented and just as unacceptable. We want to cover LPGA events but not at this cost."

Tomlin said the AP had no objections to limits on commercial use of its coverage, which all leagues forbid, "but the LPGA credential still limits our editorial use to illustration of stories about the event actually depicted in the image."

"If a golfer is photographed at the Fields Open, for example, and two months later is involved in a boating accident or is otherwise in the news, use of the Fields image to illustrate that subsequent story would require LPGA permission."

This is totally out of line with coverage of just about any event I can think of. Imagine the NHL saying you can't use a photo of a suited up Jean Beliveau to illustrate a retrospective of his life without the league's permission.

You have to wonder about the media who will actually agree to these restrictions - and who will help open the door to more such constraints.

Hat tip to the Star's Josh Rubin.

Camp Pain Trail

Here's a condensed version of the Western Standard story I blogged yesterday. It ran on the National Post's op-ed page today.

Reporters on the Martin campaign seemed to become almost consumed with Liberal bungling. They began filing stories speculating that there might be a mole in the Liberal war room deliberately leaking stories to hurt Martin. When Martin did get around to announcing his education plan (it matched the details CP had reported the previous evening), the subsequent news conference was dominated by questions about the leaked story, the possibility of a mole, and then tough questions about the income-trust scandal that had been dogging the Grits since December. Only a few reporters bothered asking about policy.

It was becoming clear that the media pool had been poisoned. The next day, at a Whitby, Ont., seniors' centre, after Martin announced hundreds of millions of dollars in aid for seniors and the disabled, the press was openly hostile to Martin. As Allan Woods of CanWest was beginning to ask for the prime minister's response to breaking news about fresh scandal -- the possibility of bogus billing by a Quebec group called Option Canada -- he was cut off by Liberal handlers. The prime minister walked out of the room, leaving reporters shouting questions at his back.

Interestingly, the Post did not cut out the references to the excellent work performed by the Canadian Press throughout the campaign. Last week, when the Post picked up Warren Kinsella's rant against the media, the complimentary bits about CP were cut.

The Post does not subscribe to CP, although it does use its stories on the website. CanWest meanwhile is a subscriber to CP.

POST-DATED: Post publisher Gordon Fisher suddenly quit his seat on CP's executive committee the other day. (Gerry Nott, CanWest's Ottawa bureau chief, still sits on the CP board.) Fisher's move is causing some to speculate on the Post's imminent demise.

The Knives of the Long Night

Don't lie on the sofa hiding under a blanket all alone tonight!  Step into my blog-o-den and share your hopes, dreams, fears and frustrations at the TV, radio, online and blog coverage of the election results.

I won't be live blogging because it's too hard to flip around and track all the channels while surfing the blogs while taking notes while moderating comments while writing while coping with the technology. (What's more, I may have to come up with a treeware column too, depending on what happens.)

So please don't leave me here all alone. I'm a-scared!!!

Here's the deal: This will be an open thread type of discussion. Post away, and I will be putting my two bits as we go along. I am especially interested in how the networks do their thing.

Two things to remember:

(1) Please just hit ''publish'' once. It may take a few minutes for me to see and approve your comment.

(2) You will have to hit your ''refresh'' button to see the latest comments.

Hope you can join in! 

Who let the dogs out?

B.C. journalism professor Alan Bass casts his academic eye on the election coverage so far and finds it wanting:

It’s ironic, but at a time when the reliability of public opinion polls is being questioned as never before, polls have dominated coverage of this campaign to an unprecedented extent. In particular, the “daily tracking poll” produced by The Strategic Counsel company for CTV and the Globe and Mail has provided reporters and editors from all media outlets with an irresistible touchstone around which to build their election narrative from day to day.

That’s particularly true now with election day so close and the polls seemingly showing the Conservatives building a lead that – should they be an accurate foreshadowing of election day – would give Stephen Harper and his party an opportunity to form a government. Of course, the same thing happened in 2004 and a lot of journalists looked silly when the Liberals emerged with a minority government. You’d think the media this time would avoid giving in to the temptation to proclaim a winner before election day, but apparently the lessons of history are not as compelling as today’s polling results. Political journalists are often accused of running in packs, with some justification, and pack journalism tends to be most obvious during election campaigns.

Even if there were no polls, journalists working together on election campaigns would likely share a consensus impression of what was happening. Polls, especially when a number of surveys produce comparable results, make that tendency virtually irresistible.

Peace, order and good government, eh? has been tracking the polls throughout the campaign, for those who are interested. I, for one, am not.

As for the newshounds, well, note that most of the usual suspects are very quiet about how mainstream journalists are covering the campaign right now.

The pack must be mushing in the right direction, politically-speaking.