More Questions About Middle East War Photos

By: Hillary Profita
Topics: In The News

(AP)

We noticed last week that after some bloggers and talk radio hosts aired their suspicions about various news outlets staging photos of the aftermath of Israeli air strikes on Qana, accused news agencies actually responded. In an Associated Press article detailing the accusations, the outlets responded by denying the photos were staged.

While that controversy seems to have dissipated somewhat, questions suggesting that another photo taken during air strikes on Beirut was doctored arose -- and yesterday Reuters pulled the altered photo and said it was no longer accepting pictures from the photographer. According to the Jerusalem Post, the photo "which shows plumes of smoke rising from downtown Beirut after an IAF bombing, appeared to have been doctored to show more intense smoke and destruction over the city." (FishbowlNY has the photo, with and without alterations.) The photographer, Adnan Hajj, "was among several photographers from the main international news agencies whose images of a dead child being held up by a rescuer in the village of Qana, south Lebanon, after an Israeli air strike on July 30 have been challenged by blogs critical of the mainstream media's coverage of the Middle East conflict," according to a Reuters story, which also included a comment from Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters: "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." Nonetheless, the statement continued: "This represents a serious breach of Reuters' standards and we shall not be accepting or using pictures taken by him."

UPDATE: Reuters has discovered that Hajj altered another photo and has withdrawn from its database all 920 photos taken by the photographer, a move that a Reuters photo editor called "precautionary."

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by bob___k August 7, 2006 11:34 PM EDT: Take a trip down memory lane by viewing previous MSM manipulation of photos found at The Jawa Report. http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/184211.php; Reply to this comment


by one_american August 7, 2006 5:04 PM EDT: Does anyone really believe it is a coincidence that Adnan Hajj was the same photographer that provided the staged propaganda photographs the dead children at Qana? As I have said before, this is willful participation in terrorist propaganda by the news services. Reutergate!; Reply to this comment


by texxin August 7, 2006 3:14 PM EDT: Tell The White House to Offer a Real Cease-Fire Proposal Dragging its feet as long as it possibly can, the Bush Administration, along with France, late last week offered a cease-fire proposal for the war in Lebanon which was thoroughly inadequate and which is unlikely to bring about anything but more bloodshed. The proposal does not say anything about the withdrawal of the Israeli Army from Lebanon and only requires that the Israelis cease "offensive" military operations, while Hezbollah would be required to stand down and disarm completely. Such one-sided terms, in which one side stops fighting while the other continues and gets to keep its territorial gains, is obviously not going to go anywhere. It is offered, like so much this Administration has done in the last six years, as a fig leaf to try and make people think it is doing something meaningful when in reality it intends to do nothing. The carnage has reached new levels in recent days. Yesterday's tragic killing of twelve Israeli Army reservists at Kfar Giladi by rocket attacks has undoubtedly hardened Israeli resolve, as it would any nation. Already this morning there are reports of significant loss of life in several Lebanese villages from aerial bombardment in response. Which will only harden the resolve of Hezbollah. And so on and so. Somehow this has to end. We are all going to pay a heavy price for what is happening over there . http://www.whitehouse.gov/contact/; Reply to this comment