You Call This a Scandal?
It goes without saying that no news organization should ever doctor its photos. That said, the wingnutosphere’s latest “GAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!11!”-fest over a poorly-doctored Reuters picture of Beirut leaves a lot to be desired. Here is the altered picture:
The wingnutosphere’s complaint is that Reuters doctored the photo to smear Israel by making it look like there was a lot more smoke pouring out of the freshly-bombed buildings than there really was. Now, here is the undoctored picture:
As you can see, there’s still a whole shitload of smoke billowing out of those buildings, even without being Photoshopped.
Now, while I think it’s unethical for Reuters to photoshop any picture it runs, I have to ask… is there really that much of a difference between the two that justifies the wingnutosphere’s scream fest? I mean, to me it looks like the photographer mostly darkened the smoke in the picture so it’d look better in black-and-white. I can’t believe this is the best the wingnutosphere can come up with nowadays.
there is a spot in the center that bears the mark of one Winston Smith
mdhatter- seriously. This is even weaker than their “the Pennsylvania memorial is a monument to Islamofascism!!1!”
While I agree that the faux controversy over this photo is a pile of crap, I look forward to the official explanation for this crappy retouching.
Dayv- laziness is the most likely explanation. I don’t think this photo has been altered in a way that significantly alter its meaning. Beirut REALLY IS getting the crap kicked out of it, and I don’t think the undoctored photo disproves that.
well Brad, now that you mention it, those photoshopped curls of smoke ARE remarkably crescent-like.
mdhatter- seriously. This is even weaker than their “the Pennsylvania memorial is a monument to Islamofascism!!1!�
The Memorial thing at least had the benefit of being completely fucking insane (and to add to the insanity, was being pushed by the son of John Rawls).
This is, quite simply, inconsequential to every one but the person caught doctoring photographs.
Because now they can say more loudly, “the dead babies at Qana were fake too, fake as those Alice Cooper used to guillotine onstage, neener neener, Arabs=subhuman, Israelis=God’s Army.”
Brad picture one is a leftist attempt to encourage anti-semitism and anti-americanism through the liberal media’s propaganda.
Picture two is freedom clouds.
I think the difference is striking.
I think they’re pissed because the darkened photo, the big cloud on the left clearly shows the numbers “6 6 6” which means that the bombers are satanic. Did anyone hear the RWers whine when the Midnight Star photoshopped a picture of Satan onto a pic of Hurricane Andrew? See, told ya.
The answer to why they’re wimpering about Reuters is because they are a bunch of babies.
I can’t believe this is the best the wingnutosphere can come up with nowadays.
You can’t? Really?
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.
I think they’re pissed because the darkened photo, the big cloud on the left clearly shows the numbers “6 6 6″ which means that the bombers are satanic.
OK, quick, somebody photoshop Satan in there in the style of the Weekly World News! I can’t do it at work.
It IS a sign of desperation on the part of Right Blogistan. There’s plenty of documentary evidence of the level of destruction in Beirut as well as the rest of Lebanon. There is absolutely no basis for saying the Israelis have acted with restraint, or even have taken the proximity of civilians into account when making targeting decisions. Indeed, I cannot understand what they are trying to do other than collectively punish the Lebanese for Hezbollah’s actions, because they must know that striking Lebanese army bases, Christian and Druze neighborhoods, civilian infrastructure and even UNIFIL posts is only costing them goodwill and the ability to work with their neighbors after hostilities cease. One photo, no matter how extensively modified, is meaningless. There are international journalists with video cameras all over the couuntry. Geez, watch PBS, BBC and al Jazeera for a few minutes and then come back here and tell me, what, the israelis AREN’T murdering hundred of people and wrecking an entire country? Who cares how much the bloodthirsty denizens of LGF bleat? What matters is that, just like the US in Iraq, they know the world is watching and people WILL be held accountable for this…
mikey
The same photographer who staged the Qana pictures was at work here. The photographer has a documented history of creating propaganda for Hizb’allah.
Just like how the left created the fake TANG memos, they are creating more lies to try and advance their agenda.
Call me a deranged conspiracy theorist, but I thought the fixation on this non-issue was the usual “Look, over there, a pony!” nonsense.
The frenzybots can hint darkly at Hezbollah culpability for Qana all day and night without anyone paying much attention, but if there’s one thing psychotic squeak-demons like Michelle and her readership enjoy, it’s a mass pile-on to the hated MSM.
It’s hard to spin stories of Israeli misdeeds convincingly, since at least some of the Malkinoids cling to a shred of humanity. Shrieks of “liberal bias”, on the other hand, have a pumped and primed audience, fully fluffed and ready to dash around after Reuters execs like the Keystone Kops.
Goddamn MSM. So devious, so cunning.
I hate it when the Photoshop levels slip.
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!!!!1!!! I beat Gary to the punchline!
But I beat Mal to the punchline! Nyah!
I don’t actually think this photo is doctored. The two photos are cropped slightly differently (less foerground and sky in the “altered” photo. If you take the original photo and do the “auto contrast” or “auto levels” function in Photoshop, they still don’t look the same, but if you crop the original the same way as the “adusted” photo and then run “auto contrast” they look very similar. Some guy probably did that and then a photo editor corrected it because it made a lousy over-contrasted photo.
SCANDAL!!!
Damn. Does this mean that photo of the jack-a-lope isn’t real?
Noah Feldman has given a brilliant analysis of how Israel’s strategy in Lebanon and Gaza meshes with US moves to foster democracy in the Middle East. As part of their schooling in democracy, the Arabs must learn that their electoral choices have real world consequences. If they vote for Hamas, Hizbollah or similar terrorist groups, then they bear full responsibility for any outrages that these groups commit. Thus they forfeit any right to complain about any retaliatory bombing raids, e.g. Qana.
This is a whole bag of stupid. Stupid of Reuteres to photoshop a news picture (what on earth are they thinking?!) and stupid of the wingnutasshatosphere to make an even bigger, stupider deal out of this stupidity.
Stupid.
Oops, and stupid of me to misspell “Reuters.”
“Freedom Clouds” – oh my god, that is so sick/funny/likely-to-be-adopted-by-the-Orwellians, er, NeoConners
As part of their schooling in democracy, the Arabs must learn that their electoral choices have real world consequences. If they vote for Hamas, Hizbollah or similar terrorist groups, then they bear full responsibility for any outrages that these groups commit.
Luckily, the citizens of the United States bear no similar responsibility for the actions of the Bush regime.
Why is it that one month ago, we had “Hezbollah” and, for those who took their Arabic a little more seriously, “Hizbullah”. Then with the war, the wingnuts started writing about it daily and now we have Hezballah, Hiz’b’ollah, Hezb’Allah and all sorts of gleeful misspellings trotted out by Pamela (who, to be fair, struggles to spell her name right two times in the same post) and the wingnutosphere, including our friend above?
I think your premise is flawed: The magnitude of the lie is much less important than the fact of it’s existence.
If your friend stole $5 when he could have stolen more would you continue to trust him?
If your girlfiend/wife lied about kissing another man, would you just be thankful she didn’t fuck him and continue to trust her?
How many times does a person have to lie to you before you stop being a patsy?
The magnitude of the lie is much less important than the fact of it’s existence.
Agreed. And this lie apparently has the magnitude of an ant’s footprint. No matter what color the smoke, the bottom line is Israel dropped bombs on Lebanon and buildings are burning.
XipeTotec us right. Reuters’ fuck-up means that nothing bad is happening in Lebanon and lots of civilians aren’t being killed.
And to address XipeTotec’s point- fair enough. The next time I see Reuters photos of Beirut getting bombed by Israel, I will automatically assume that the smoke is of a lighter hue.
They’ve done more than crop the first picture differently, it has been magnified as well to make difference between the 2 pictures appear greater than it is.
The bottom line is that no smoke was added to the first picture, the pictures are identical other than that the contrast was increased in one. They didn’t clone more smoke and add it where there had been none.
Typical right wing bullshit.
Also, Brad:
Who’s to say which of those 2 pictures is more like what it was like in real life? The bottom picture may have come out more washed out than the actual scene. The top picture may be more accurate than the bottom one. All we know is that they are slightly different in the level of contrast.
Fool- it looks like they added some smoke at the top. But still, even if they’d run the undoctored photo, my first though would be, “Oh, that doens’t look good…”
Because now they can say more loudly, “the dead babies at Qana were fake too, fake as those Alice Cooper used to guillotine onstage, neener neener, Arabs=subhuman, Israelis=God’s Army.�
What strikes me is that it is an extremely amateurish use of the clone tool. Almost as though someone was trying to get it noticed.
However, I have been having more trouble than usual lately with my aluminum foil headdress.
Pshaw!
I’d hold my wedding reception in that second picture.
A right walk in the park, it is.
(incidentally, how bad do you have to be at Photoshop for the stoned kids over at Fark to clean your clock at it?)
“But I beat Mal to the punchline!”
Would that be our very own Mel de Mer?
I hate to side with the Malkanites, but the undoctored photo appears to be a large cloud of smoke arising from one bombed and burning building on the left hand side of the picture. An unsteady wind has smeared the smoke so that it lies over the entire neighborhood.
The doctored photo makes the smoke much darker, apparently more intense, and obscuring more of the city. It is also less apparent that just that one building on the left is burning.
It still is not such a big deal, but I find it to be a clearly dishonest and unfair representation. The desire of the Reuters drone for a dramatic, high impact picture is a more plausible explanation for this than some sort of conspiracy to make Israel look bad. Israel is doing just fine in that regard on its own.
I take that back. On looking at it again, the cropping of the ‘doctored’ photo (removing the untouhed buildings in the foreground) has a stronger effect in suggesting that the entire city is aflame than the darkening of the smoke. Plain old croppong can’t be considered dishonest, can it? Better check BAGnews.
It is a good thing I did not major in Art History… I probably would not have graduated.
You know what’s going to happen, don’t you? This whole thing will explode into a massive shitstorm that will, incredible though it may seem, turn into a massive rout by the Repubs over this Democrats this fall. Then, once the votes have been safely counted, we’ll find out that this Adnan Hajj guy actually works in the graphics department at Regnery Publishing, and the whole thing was a Rove setup.
XipeTotec said,
August 7, 2006 at 3:14
How many times does a person have to lie to you before you stop being a Patsy?
**********************************
Hey, cupcake, let’s not be taking ADA Frey’s name in vain. And, word to the wise:
not a word about his Lord Pasty (– he’ll sue your ass — with his cock.)
Photoshop is the new WMD. Does Sadly, No want to be held at the mercy of anti-american Islamofascists and their media supporters? What if Iran gets a license to use Photoshop, or steals it from a site in Russia? We cannot wait for the mushroom cloud of George Bush’s head atop the naked body of Ron Jeremy.
To hell with photoshop. Take a look at the “before” and “after” satellite phote of Southern Lebanon here
The shots are animated, so wait a few seconds and watch the whole thing.
Gah…here’s the link…
http://electronicintifada.net/v2/article5400.shtml
Gee, the right wing didn’t think it was a big deal when Time made O.J. look blacker. So what’s the problem with smoke?
All this proves is that Reuter’s hires gradeschoolers to touch up their photos. Yeesh, somebody gets paid to do that? I could do better Photoshopping in my sleep.
Like I trust what Israel says….
Propaganda is part of war and EVERYONE plays the game. Deal with it!
Consider it dealt with.
As always with the Right, when the Facts (such as death, dismemberment, and
destruction) cannot be refuted, they create a distraction … in this case, an old
favorite: the “liberal media” .
The unfortunate consequence of this is that now the wingers will state that every photo of death & destruction has been faked. As per their normal mode, the wingers will question the authenticity of media reports on the ground that they are biased in favor of liberals and therefore in favor of the terr’ists.
It looks to me like this is simple a closeup of the original photo.
It’s definitely photoshopped (albeit very poorly) – in the upper left a small amount of additional smoke has been added using the clone/stamp tool. The entire smoke cloud has been lifted up a bit higher, too, by the looks of it. When I get home I could have a fiddle with both pics in PS and work it out, but stuck at work I have limited options. That said, it is _very_ poorly done, and I’m not surprised the photographer was caught.
Of course, if you set that aside for a moment, just look at the pictures. One shows a city that has been targetted by bombings, with a huge amount of smoke coming from one or more buildings. The second shows a city that has been targetted by bombings, with a huge amount of smoke coming from one or more buildings.
He may have edited the picture for aesthetic reasons (and done a piss-poor job of it) but he certainly did not change what it shows. There is nothing in the doctored version which was not in the original. The way the wingnuts are screaming you’d think he got a snap of happy children playing in the sun and added smoke and fire and destruction that was never there. All he’s done is move stuff around. He may be stupid (and a poor photoshopper) but a propagandist he is not.
“The magnitude of the lie is much less important than the fact of it’s existence.”
Oh, of course, you’re absolutely right. If I told you those slacks DIDN’T mke your ass look big, it would be just the same as if I told you Saddam Hussein had Weapons of Mass Destruction and we needed to invade his country because he was a gathering threat.
Why would Reuter’s bother? That first photo looks blurry and pixelly to me.
Where did the undoctored picture come from? Is there anything by Reuters acknowledging this?
Photoshop is the new WMD. Does Sadly, No want to be held at the mercy of anti-american Islamofascists and their media supporters?
Oh. Well, to be wholly realistic here, this guy is using the clone-stamp tool while I’m, like, manually rendering Jeff Goldstein into Jean-Louis David paintings. It’s not really the same order of destructive capability.
I wonder how they’ll spin the before and after satellite photos?
Just the concept of manually rendering pasty (or is it pastie?) seems icky to me, but to each his own, Gavin.
I think that when you give smoke clouds corn-rows, you’ve crossed the line.
I really don’t understand why the photog felt the need to touch-up the photo. The smoke is pretty visible either way. It’s still coming from one building and a very large cloud of smoke is drifting over Beirut. I mean, if his intent was to make the damage look worse than it was, he could have made the smoke look like it was coming from several buildings.
And it looks like he just discovered the clone-stamp tool last week. Very very clumsy, stupid and wholly unnecessary.
while I’m, like, manually rendering Jeff Goldstein into Jean-Louis David paintings. It’s not really the same order of destructive capability.
Jean-Louis David would disagree…
So, does Jean-Louis David have a frère Jacques?
it looks to me like they were trying to add exta obfuscation to one or two buildings in the middle of the shot… which isn’t news, even though it might be propaganda
[…] OMG! OMG! Reuters darkened smoke in a picture! There may have been building altered! Everything about Beirut is a lie and every America-hating bastard there is sucking on the teat of luxury. […]
Actually, I don’t think there’s significant doctoring going on here. I can line up the shadows of the city and account for all the smoke in the top photo in the bottom photo. I think the “doctoring” effect we’re seeing is a side-effect of the low-res, bad-contrast problem of the first photo–bad photoshopping, to be sure, but not necessarily “doctoring” in the “deliberate tampering to obfuscate the meaning” sense of the word. (As for the corn rows, smoke will billow in regular “curling” patterns barring any strong winds. I’m sure a physics person could explain why, but I’ve seen it several times personally.)
That said, the Left probably found these photos in the same drawer where they found the “forged” TANG memos, which were never *proven* to be forgeries and amazingly enough, somehow managed to correctly capture the contents of the documents as verified by a witness.
Dorothy, that smoke in the upper left is clone-stamped. Poorly. It’s not a ‘low-res-artifact’.
As for ‘significant’… in the technical sense it is significant. In the contextual sense, it’s not very significant at all. But that won’t stop wingnuts from allowing it to let them pretend that angelic Israel isn’t hurting any innocent civilians. And even if they did (which they’re not!), those civvies had it coming because they didn’t take up arms against Hizb’allah.
I mean, apart from the roads, sanitation, aqueducts, security and health care, what has Hizb’allah ever done for them?
There could (and probably is) a perfectly honest explanation.
First of all, I don’t even think they are the same picture. They were probably several pictures taken in sequence. The photographer was probably playing around with photoshop just to get a better look. Then, the photographer accidently sent the wrong photo in. After checking later, it would be pretty obvious that the wrong version was sent, and the photographer corrected the mistake.
(And of course, it may not have been the photographer, but somebody in the office who did all of this).
How big a bung did the photographer take from the Israelis? This is a classic disinformation exercise. The Israelis are getting hammered over the media’s coverage of this collective punishment bombing campaign with most people in the world (THE WORLD NOT THE USA!!!!) now blaming the Israelis. What better way to shift perceptions than by putting up a “faked” photograph to damage the reputation of a major news agency. Then their flacks like LGF and Witless Jugs start firing up their keyboards.. I am not saying the wingnuts are in on this. That would be too likely to give the game away.
This is not a great disinformation exercise but I suspect Sefton Delmer is chuckling in his grave
Late to the game, but Fish @08/07 1:50 got it right.
First thing I notice (without the original) is too much contrast and saturation. Something that “autos” love to do.
Which is all irrelevant as what this picture really shows how the right is down to scrapin’ the resins off the pipe to get their fix.
Since the photog was a free lancer, methinks he probably tried to make the pic more dramatic in order to increase the likelihood that Reuters would buy it. Could be simple self-interest at work, no?
Yep it was photoshopped okay. See how much uglier Ann coulter is in the bottom photo.
I have to ask… is there really that much of a difference between the two that justifies the wingnutosphere’s scream fest?
Yes. One is doctored, the other is not.
We need to take a hard line stance against journalistic fabrication. We are in the reality-based community. This is our strength. That what we say is based in reality.
Yake that away, and what’s left?
I mean, to me it looks like the photographer mostly darkened the smoke in the picture so it’d look better in black-and-white.
There are other differences. He did indeed add smoke. You can tell by the telltale signs of copy and paste (note the repeated triangle-shaped holes in the clouds).
I haven’t read the wingnuts’ responses, and maybe they’re out of line (if history is any guide, they are), but that doesn’t excuse doctoring photos.
Andrew I think all here have made it clear that it’s wrong to doctor photos (and if one is determined to do it anyway – sheesh, at least make it worth the effort).
But the wingers are taking a great leap from ‘doctored photos!’ to ‘proof of fabricated casualties!’
Phoenician in a time of Romans said,
August 7, 2006 at 8:10
I wonder how they’ll spin the before and after satellite photos?
Obviously the satellites were launched from China!
Andrew A. Gill, SLS said,
August 7, 2006 at 20:46
“I have to ask… is there really that much of a difference between the two that justifies the wingnutosphere’s scream fest?”
Yes. One is doctored, the other is not.
We need to take a hard line stance against journalistic fabrication. We are in the reality-based community. This is our strength. That what we say is based in reality.
ROTFLMAO! Do they still teach this crap in journalism school, or have you just been isolated on a desert island where the cable franchise only broadcasts reruns of “Lou Grant?”
For decades, now, the primary qualifications for a career in journalism seem to have been a dye job, a nose job and a boob job. No doubt a blow job (at least!) also helps in some cases. And these days even the teeth are suspect! After a few years, most of the practitioners of the craft are working on their second or third failed relationship, and their fourth vice. The fat guy who worked at the desk next to mine at the newspaper was twice-divorced, and a two-pack-a-day smoker, taking an unhealthy combo of diet pills and pain killers, washed down with the bourbon he kept in his desk drawer. Like those Hunter S. Thompson fantasies we budding journalists had in college somehow gone sadly awry.
There is no such thing as absolute journalistic objectivity. This is the industry often described as “yellow,” that spawned muckraking, and that inspired such memorable lines as: “If it bleeds, it leads,” and Spiro Agnew’s “nattering nabobs of negativism.”
Bias, of course is in the eye of the beholder. It’s the difference between an “alcoholic,” a “substance abuser,” and a “sh*t-faced drunk.” So I will present you with a “reality-based” issue: Digital cameras can, in some cases, capture the equivalent of over 100 still frames per minute. (Depending on the model used.) Photographer captures a series of pictures of Bush, and uploads the images from memory. The editor chooses a photo of Bush standing next to Tony Blair. It is one of three such photos–out of a possible twenty of the pair of them–where Bush is grinning like a cretin. (This latter detail, of course, is a fact that you are ordinarily not given.) It is printed in its entirety, unretouched. Is it “real” enough? Biased? You be the judge.
Nope, no scandal here.
“There could (and probably is) a perfectly honest explanation.”
Reuters doesn’t seem to think so, and they tried to float the “I was just cleaning the dust up, Guvnah!” defense.
Do you clowns have to practice to be this fucking stupid? How do you manage to get food in your mouths? How did your ancestors, so clearly lacking in IQ, manage to fuck?
I’ve got a pair of shoes that’s smarter than the entire readership here combined.
Pablo, you’re not really in any position to call people stupid. But if you’re determined to do so, why not boast about your super-genius shoes to this MSM/Hezbollah apologist?
Go on, Pablo! Go ask him if he had to practice being this stupid for saying essentially the same fucking thing DR just said.
Sheesh, talk about making a humongous deal over fucking nothing.
Could be that the right-wingers are… dare I say it? Just blowing smoke.
It’s only nothing to you because it doesn’t further your particular agenda. Even Reuters has had to concede that it is enough of a something that they have pulled all of Hajj’s photos from the database and announced:
Clearly such principles are beyond Dreamweasel’s rather limited moral universe.
Why don’t you square Reuters firing the guy and deleting everything they’ve bought from him, ilyka?
If you want, I’ll ask Allah if he’d like to stop by and help you. Would you like me to do that, dipshit?
Nope, no scandal here.
“There could (and probably is) a perfectly honest explanation.�
Do you clowns have to practice to be this fucking stupid? How do you manage to get food in your mouths?
Nah, it comes easy. Seriously, Pablo, help me out here. You got the smart shoes and everything (and I didn’t even point out that you seem to be part of the readership over here). But I’m confused. You explained strenuously that this is a scandal. A terrible thing, and we over here on the left are missing it. Please explain WHY it’s a scandal and what I’m missing. You guys never tell us that part. I mean, does this mean there’s NO bombing of Beirut? That’d be pretty silly. That the bombs don’t hurt people? What is the fucking point, Pablo (use small words if writing with your shoes, ok?)
mikey
The “altered” picture appears to have had the contrast altered. Look at those shadows on the building – they are almost black, compared to the “unaltered” photo. Clearly the darks were made much darker. I see no evidence of any editing of the shot, but one would need to put both the files in a photo editer to be sure. People who think they see any editing are being confused by the difference in resolution, size and cropping in the two images as has already been pointed out.
I must add that the idea that the shot whether captured digitally or on actual physical film is somehow a sacred and perfectly accurate copy of reality is just plain wrong. The actual image is a function of the lighting, shutter speed, angle and framing of shot, the type of film or algolrithm for interpreting the image. Camera and film manufactures strive to create an image that appeals to people, not one that perfectly renders the hue and depth of color of the subject. Ever noticed that the blue in your photos is is just perfect and almost unreal. That’s because film and digital cameras are designed to produce that shade of blue rather then the less appealing one that was acutal there. In fact, manufactures actually produce different products for different countires because their research shows for example that Japanse prefer a different shade of green for grass then American. Interestingly, software can be used to make the image more closely match reality then the original unaltered image.
If you want, I’ll ask Allah if he’d like to stop by and help you. Would you like me to do that, dipshit?
Well, YEAH, dorkface. If he could explain your point, since you clearly can’t. What conclusion you are so earnestly and gleefully drawing. Why this even matters. What you seem to think it MEANS considering how excited you are about it. That’d be nice…
mikey
As always, the clueless demonstrate their cluelessness. It’s comforting in a way.
(and I didn’t even point out that you seem to be part of the readership over here).
Fuck you, mikey. Don’t ever say anything like that about me again.
Well, YEAH, dorkface. If he could explain your point, since you clearly can’t. What conclusion you are so earnestly and gleefully drawing.
OK, let me get this straight. You are perfectly content to ignore what Reuters has actually said and done about the situation in favor of what Allah said 2 days ago upon first look at the first photos, because the “wingnutoshphere” must be overreacting.
Reuters bad. Allah good. Because of the wingnuts.
Is that right, mikey? Is that where you’re going with this? Are you going to buy the next pix Adnan Hajj wants to turn in? Because, you know, Reuters isn’t.
Turn a TV on. It’s all over the place. 🙂
Silly maggots.
Please explain WHY it’s a scandal and what I’m missing. You guys never tell us that part.
mikey — Yes, we do. However, you guys never pay attention to anything doesn’t fit your agenda. Two posts up from yours, I quoted the Reuters representative:
Now, maybe the notion of “principles” or big words like “entirely” and “unnacceptable” are difficult for you. If so, let me know and I’ll explain it even more simply.
I’m going to take a wild guess and speculate that it’s because they’d like to preserve a modicum of journalistic integrity; or, what Andrew Gill said.
But what’s this, Pablo? You haven’t answered my question: Why is what DR said “stupid?” No, no, put your Einstein loafers away–I’ll answer it: Because you don’t think, you simply plug everything into a narrative of right-wing-GOOD, left-wing-BAD. When anything comes along that conflicts with that narrative, you bust a spring and start calling everyone dipshit and retard, because that’s the only game you got.
Allah and I have argued with each other before, Pablo. The difference between the two of you is chiefly one of brains: He has them. You don’t.
s that right, mikey? Is that where you’re going with this? Are you going to buy the next pix Adnan Hajj wants to turn in? Because, you know, Reuters isn’t.
Still doing it. Photo was doctored. Bad Journalist was fired. The fact of the doctored photo was NOT kept secret. So what the FUCK does it prove, or say, or mean? Why are you guys so exercised? James Frey wrote a whole book full of lies and it was a bestseller. Where’s your outrage? I mean, if this means something geopolitically and is not just a case of one doctored photo and the photog suffering the consequences, I’d sure like to hear you say what it is, you righteous buffoon!!
Manipulating photographs in this way is entirely unacceptable and contrary to all the principles consistently held by Reuters throughout its long and distinguished history. It undermines not only our reputation but also the good name of all our photographers.
Sadly, No! I entirely agree with this statement. So what is your fucking POINT? What are you asshats saying this means in reference to Israel’s criminal military behavior? Still can’t come out and say it, can ya? ‘Cause, amazingly, you’ll look even STUPIDER than my old sneakers…
mikey
His point is that you’re a bad, bad person who’s objectively pro-Hezbollah, mikey. I mean, duh.
What are you asshats saying this means in reference to Israel’s criminal military behavior?
If that’s your question, I’m saying you missed your meds, mikey.
Oh, that Allah?
He so crazy!
Don’t turn the news on, you slipped kiddies. And stay away from pretty much all of the news sites. You just don’t want to know.
Toodles!
mikey — The title of this topic is “You Call This a Scandal?” not “Is Israel Wrong?” or whatever you would prefer to discuss.
Yes, I call this a scandal. Yes, Reuters agrees. Yes, apparently even you agree, though you insist on being very nasty about it as well.
I’m glad that is settled.
because they’d like to preserve a modicum of journalistic integrity;
You’re the smart kid in the room, aren’t you?
Why is what DR said “stupid?�
Let’s start with it being WRONG. There was not an honest explanation. And Allah didn’t suggest that there was an honest explanation, only a non-malicious one. Which was before MORE Adnan Hajj trickery came to light. There is no honest explanation for changing the substance of a photo and passing it off to a newswire as a real photo. There’s also no honest explanation for it getting out on the wire, other than gross incompetence on the part of editorial staff.
Where would you like to go from there? 🙂
Oh. I’m sorry, fellahs. I was confused. See, I didn’t know that you were only interested in honesty and integrity in journalism. I’m such an idiot, see, I THOUGHT you guys were saying this had some importance outside the esoteric realm of journalistic ethics. And I just didn’t know that pablo, the malkin thing, all you guys who are USUALLY interested in geopolitics and american foreign policy had changed your focus. Particularly as it relates to killing muslims. So I hope you can understand my confusion. I’ve enjoyed your renewed interest in honesty and integrity in journalism, and I’m sure you’ll hold Bill O’Reilly and Rush Limbaugh to the same standards, as it’s clear you care only about honesty, integrity and ethical journalism and as far as Israel’s actions go, well, there’s just not a shadow of a doubt about their committing war crimes. So I applaud you, and I’m glad you’ve joined me in unanimous condemnation of Israel…
mikey
mikey — More sneering, more contempt, and more changing the subject. I’ll take that as your gentle way of admitting you’ve lost this argument.
Yeah, well, I was never gonna convince you asshats anyway. But hgwells, mi amigo, if you think anybody over here in the Reality Based Community is buying your story, your crazier than a shithouse rat. Wingnuts don’t give two shits about integrity, and you, pal, are a wingnut. You’ve got Coulter, malkin, o’reilly and the like. So your story don’t sell…
mikey
Hey, hgwells —
If you’re interested in tracking down the incivility (or the “sneering” and “contempt”) in this thread, you might start at the top, read through the comments — mostly focused on trying to figure out the technicality as well as the ethics involved in the doctored Reuters photo. It was what many of us refer to as a rational discussion aimed at discovering the truth.
Then, if you kept reading, you might discover that the first obnoxious attack post is this one:
Do you clowns have to practice to be this fucking stupid? How do you manage to get food in your mouths? How did your ancestors, so clearly lacking in IQ, manage to fuck?
It was posted by your fellow traveller, Pablo. After that, Mikey tried to get Pablo to explain why this doctored photo is of great political significance (since, indeed, that’s the talking point among the rightsters today). Pablo declined in favor of more bashing (If you want, I’ll ask Allah if he’d like to stop by and help you. Would you like me to do that, dipshit?) So as for “changing the subject” goes, if the high-IQ shoes fit . . .
Sorry for the lengthy summary, but your reading comprehension seems to be on the fritz.
Smiling Mortician — Again, the title of this topic is “You Call This a Scandal?â€? not “Who Started the Invcivility?” Though, if I pause to consider the question, I’d give Brad R. the credit way up at the top by refering to his colleagues on the right as the “wingnutosphere.”
However, I am neither the Civility Police here nor am I responsible for Pablo’s interactions in this discussion.
Thanks for the gratuitous insult. I’d say we have another participant who prefers to sneer and change the subject as his sportsman-like way of admitting defeat!
Unless anyone has something to contribute on the subject “You Call This a Scandal?” — aside from insults of course — I’m out of here.
To my colleagues on the left, as you leave the auditorium be sure to pick up your complimentary copies of the home version of “Sadly, No!” the game where leftist-progressives discover that their rage, fussiness and fantasies don’t necessarily have anything to do with the real world.
And thanks for playing!
Geeez, what a prick…
mikey
Thanks to Glenn, you guys have been linked to from Salon.
I find that extremely amusing for some reason. Am I the only one?
Ugh. What stinks in here?
[looks upthread a bit]
Oh, noes!!1!
GAAHHHHHHH11111!!!!
Are you kidding me? Over this, they’re outraged?
[…] S,N!’s You Call This a Scandal?: […]
denfield said:
People who think they see any editing are being confused by the difference in resolution, size and cropping in the two images as has already been pointed out.
Tht’s just not true. I’ve done professional digital image editing and color retouching for graphic design studios, catalogs, magazines and multimedia for aover 15 years now, and it’s incredibly obvious that the photo was poorly retouched.
A repeated circular pattern of the (as others have mentioned) cloning tool from any digital image editor is so clear as to make me wonder about the eyesight (or perhaps the monitor gamma setting) of anyone who can’t see it.
But just for those people whose screens lack the contrast to view the difference, you should still be able to see the little puff with ears sticking out of the leftmost cloud of smoke right about where the horizon is in the undoctored photo. In the doctored image, that same puff appears directly above the position of the original, but copied a bit lighter. Then it appears again even lighter just above that. The original image has a notch between that puff and the next piece of cloud that sticks out from the main body. The doctored image doesn’t.
It’s sad, because I’m sure this is going to be one of those things the right-wing nuts are going to be screaming about for years. This guy will become the Ward Churchill of the Lebanon war.
darrelplant sez:
A repeated circular pattern of the (as others have mentioned) cloning tool from any digital image editor is so clear as to make me wonder about the eyesight (or perhaps the monitor gamma setting) of anyone who can’t see it.
You might want to mix in agenda, bias and mental retardation as things to wonder about in those who can’t see the glaringly obvious.
Some people simply refuse to see. Many of them hang out here. I wonder how many of them are photo desk editors at Reuters.
mikey sez:
Yeah, well, I was never gonna convince you asshats anyway.
Try using something other than bullshit next time, mikey.
None of this changes the fact that Israel is bombing a very heavily populated city, which means that people who have no association with any militia, sect, religion or way of thought. They have been for going on a month. They are killing people and a country.
More smoke, less smoke, pictures, no pictures…who cares. What Israel is doing is wrong: as wrong as Iran invading Kuwait, and as wrong as Germany invading Poland in 1939. Live with it.
So, someone enhanced a few photos, BIG DEAL! That’s nothing compared to Bush’s lies. The Right must be getting desperate to think this is a scandal. After all, no one was hurt by the release of these doctored photos. I guess Karl Rove has been working overtime lately.
No, it’s not a scandal. It does tell you something about how the news works, however.
From what I understand, the photo was submitted by a freelance photographer, who doctored the photo. Why did he do that? We don’t know, but the most likely answer is that he was trying to sell the photo — that’s how he makes a living — and he thought it would be more dramatic this way. New services like dramatic photos.
Reuters apparently relied on the photographer’s word. How would they know whether the photo was doctored or not? They weren’t there — otherwise they wouldn’t have needed to buy a freelanced photo. Wire services used to employ more photographers, but they found it was cheaper to buy freelance. Yes, that is a compromise of journalistic integrity, to some extent, but money is what drives the news business these days.
Is this error significant? Maybe, if it’s part of a larger trend. I don’t want to have to worry about whether photos are accurate or not. I don’t look to photojournalism for creative takes on the world. Of course, when you’re talking about photography, it is often hard to sort out what “real” means. Using a particular kind of filter, or changing the exposure time can totally alter how a scene appears. Cropping can be used to manipulate the audience, too. So this is a complicated issue. But no, I don’t think anyone wants photojournalists using PhotoShop to punch up the drama.
Is it part of a political scandal, bias in the press? I seriously doubt it. We are talking about manufactured smoke here, in more ways than one. People who oppose Israel’s punishment of Lebanon look at the news and see a pro-Israeli bias. People who support Israel’s “right to self-defense” (by blowing the crap out of Lebanon) see an anti-Israeli bias in the press. I am not saying the press is doing a great job here, but I certainly see no reason to believe that there is some kind of pro-Hezbollah conspiracy afoot at Reuters.
Actually, after looking more closely at the photo, I agree with others that Reuters should have seen the manipulation and rejected the photo immediately.
But I don’t think it makes any sense to see a conspiracy in their decision to buy the photo. More likely, they do these deals too quickly and are not looking for evidence of PhotoShop.
“None of this changes the fact that Israel is bombing a very heavily populated city, which means that people who have no association with any militia, sect, religion or way of thought. They have been for going on a month. They are killing people and a country.”
The people and government of Lebanon have to start accepting the blame for their part in this, which is the largest part of all. They let the radicals in, they fed them, they housed them, they let them get stronger and turned the other way when they got too big to even think about stopping. They allowed the thugocracy of Iran to hijack their country and use it for an Islamist fascist training camp. The UN stood by and watched, and even helped on some occasions. Time for the Lebanese to step up to the plate and hold themselves accountable for being asleep at the wheel.
I feel like throwing up everytime I see one of you “progressive” assholes posting pictures of bombed Lebanese kids or even mentioning them, all the while ignoring or really just having nothing to say, ever, about all the Israeli kids blown to pieces over the last 3 decades while they slept, rode the bus, or sat in a cafe eating.
I barf in your general direction.
Jesus, that’s ignorant. Ever heard of the Cedar Revolution or Rafik Hariri? Lebanese government control of its own territory is new, weak, and incomplete, they’ve only just barely gotten Syria out. They sure as fuck aren’t to blame for 3 decades of bombings in Israel. Targeting children is WRONG, but Hamas and the Islamic Jihad, the groups guilty of the atrocities you mention, are Palestinian NOT Lebanese organizations.
Lebanese government control of its own territory is new, weak, and incomplete, they’ve only just barely gotten Syria out.
Never heard a word out of you about the Syrian occupation of Lebanon either, now that you mention it. Still not hearing anything about the Iranian control of Hezbollah and their responsibility for the ongoing violence.
But those fucking Jooooos? Let me tell you what! THEY’RE JUST LIKE THE NAZIS!
Racist dirtbags, the lot of you.
And you’ve never heard a word out of me comparing the Israelis to Nazis, either, you ignorant, lying little shit.
Never heard a word out of you about the Syrian occupation of Lebanon either, now that you mention it.
How the fuck would you know what anyone wrote about it, you sad little LGF troll? Go back to getting Iron Fisted, Powderfinger.
mitsubishi
[…] taken after a Beirut bombing raid, but the amount of smoke in the original unaltered photograph is itself quite substantial. Israel really is bombing Lebanon; buildings really are being destroyed; many Lebanese civilians […]
[…] taken after a Beirut bombing raid, but the amount of smoke in the original unaltered photograph is itself quite substantial. Israel really is bombing Lebanon; buildings really are being destroyed; many Lebanese civilians […]