Where There’s Smoke
There's Reuters' reputation. Writing in The American Thinker, Thomas Lifson makes a very strong case for Reuters to appoint an independent outside panel to look into the veracity of photographs it has been providing to the world's media. It may very well be the only way to salvage their reputation. Even thought they have now kicked Adnan Hajj to the curb, they are still vouching for his earlier work, a rather ridiculous position given their exposure on this matter.
Which begs the question of what kind of quality standards would allow a crudely Photoshopped picture to run? How is the review of the Qana pictures by Hajj any different from the scrutiny applied to the Beirut pictures by Hajj?
Since Reuters now acknowledges that it has been hoaxed, and in turn has hoaxed the world’s media, doesn’t it owe us a detailed explanation of its standards? Shouldn’t the review of the Qana pictures be put into the hands of an independent panel of experts.
Shouldn’t Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs be part of that independent review panel? After all, Reuters owes him a debt of gratitude for uncovering a mistake their own quality assurance standards were inadequate to detect.
IF (and it must now be regarded as a serious question) Reuters is committed to supplying the world with truth rather than phony propaganda, Reuters must acknowledge the inadequacy of its standards. It must therefore immediately and thoroughly apply higher standards to all of the work it has published by Hajj, including the Qana pictures.
It would be a very smart business decision for Reuters to do this as soon as practicable. They have already played host to an employee who made death threats against Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs and this incident further damages their credibility. Frankly, I would hesitate to trust anything I read or saw that bears the Reuters imprint at this point.
UPDATE: Here's the utterly absurd explanation from Hajj as reported with a presumably straight face by Reuters:
Reuters has strict standards of accuracy that bar the manipulation of images in ways that mislead the viewer.
"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," said Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters.
"This represents a serious breach of Reuters' standards and we shall not be accepting or using pictures taken by him," Whittle said in a statement issued in London.
Due to the bad lighting conditions I am working under, my calling Reuters really bad liars is a completely understandable error on my part.
