Reutersgate widening and deepening

This story from the Jerusalem Post will not be new to most of you, but it will be important years or months from now when we try to summarize the events of August 2006:

At first everyone thought they were just blowing smoke, but the debunking of a Reuters photograph by a group of Web sites has launched a fiery online war in which bloggers have taken on the mainstream media.

Bloggers, or writers on web logs, were the first to reveal that a Reuters photograph depicting plumes of black smoke rising over Beirut was doctored to enhance smoke above the city. The Web site www.LittleGreenFootballs.com is credited with first revealing the scandal, which has been dubbed Reutersgate, but the affair has spread far wider than the Reuters News Agency and into several of the most esteemed media outlets.

More than a dozen accusations of staged or doctored photographs have made their way through various Web sites in the past several weeks. None has been treated by the news outlets as seriously as the original Reuters incident, which saw the photographer Adnin Hajj fired and over 900 of his photos removed from the Reuters wire list. But numerous other outlets - including the BBC, The New York Times and AP - have been forced to recall photos or change captions following inaccuracies pointed out in online forums.

The fact that the online community rather than fellow mainstream media has become a watchdog of accuracy has surprised many who originally derided blogs as being "devoid of accuracy."

emphasis added

For the MSM/DNC to be replaced as the main source of news for Americans, we must not only expose fraudulent incidents like Reutersgate, we must follow through and take credit where credit is due. Summaries like the one above can place a week's worth of scandal into the proper context.

We must also tie each new scandal into the context of the previous scandals.

Previous - MSM/DNC scandal quiz.

- MSM/DNC scandal summary.

- "Anything we do . . . anything we see".

Quote of the day - Little Green Footballs

"The rocks are getting turned over, and what’s underneath isn’t pretty. Reuters has a major scandal on their hands."

Charles from Little Green Footballs

Reuters' doctored Beruit photo vs. AP, NYT, Bill Moyers, Walt Handelsman, USA Today, etc.

This weekend's "journalistic" events have proven one thing - a Reuters photo is worth about as much as -

1) a CBS 60 Minutes report where a presidential election is at stake.

2) an AP report on crowd reaction.

3) a CNN analysis of U.S. soldier conduct.

4) a Newsweek report having anything to do with the Koran.

5) a USA Today photograph.

6) a Walt Handelsman cartoon.

7) an AP photo.

8) a Harper-Collins book photo.

9) an ABC report on urban rioting in the U.S.

10) a Bill Moyers commentary.

11) Election results in Washington State.

12) Opinion polls.

13) The New York Times.

Anything we do . . . anything we see . . .









The point is that replacing one photographer is not the answer.

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Update - midafternoon Monday - Reuters is withdrawing all photos taken by Adnan Hajj. H/T Michelle Malkin. We all know that this is still insufficient. It takes more than one photographer to slant the news coverage. But I am happy for the progress. At least we didn't see 12 days of stonewalling like we did during Rathergate. But the only reason Reuters reacted so quickly was the firestorm created in the blogosphere and the precedent of disgrace and shame that CBS endured as a result of that scandal.

Most of the major MSM/DNC organizations have now been bloodied by some major scandal involving fake documents, fake photos, fake sources or simply invented facts.

We are still in the middle of a long term media revolution. The old MSM/DNC is on the way out. The Reuters photo scandal is one more step on the road to wherever we are going. The post-Rathergate world will take shape one piece at a time.