Spinning a Tangled Web

The news bias at Reuters has finally been exposed, from the stringers on the ground to the top echelons of the corporation. The evidence is incontrovertible: a bad Photoshop "clone tool" job, trying to make Beirut look both bigger and smokey-er, playing for anti-Zionist sympathies around the world.

The likely culprit is one Adnan Hajj, a "freelancer" who has been caught staging photos, most recently from the massacre in Qana, Lebanon. Even if one can ignore Hiz'b'allah using civilians as cover for their para-military activities, the reporting on the event, including Hajj's photos, was highly suspect.

Big, MONSTER kudos once again to Charles Johnson, the webmaster of Little Green Footballs, for delivering the goods on this story. Thanks to his fearlessness, and lots of backup from other blogs, Reuters has to own up to its own willful negligence. Reuters has pulled all 920 of Adnan Hajj's photos from their portfolio, two days after they blacklisted him. I doubt any major press agency of any political stripe will want to hire him.

But don't expect Reuters to mention Charles or LGF, natch:

Reuters ended its relationship with Hajj on Sunday after it found that a photograph he had taken of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on suburban Beirut had been manipulated using Photoshop software to show more and darker smoke rising from buildings.

"After it [Reuters] found?" Reuters didn't find this, or if they did, they didn't care until they got caught. Is that just pathetic? Even CNN gets it, and that's saying something!

The damage to Reuters' credibility may be irreversible. I know I won't bother reading any of their stories any more.

Posted on Aug 8, 2006 at 2:38:04 AM EDT.