Reuters Needs Some Help

Reinforcing the call he made on Sunday, Thomas Lifson from Real Clear Politics has again called for an independent outside review of Reuters. They need to call for this themselves to retain their credibility.

Reuters has been caught red-handed peddling to the world's media a fake Photoshopped picture exaggerating the damage done to Beirut by an Israeli air strike. And according to experts and casual observers alike, it is a crude job, not in the least bit artful in its attempted deception. Charles Johnson of the website Little Green Footballs first raised the alarm over what appeared to be an obvious fake, and the internet community of bloggers and experts took over, rapidly demonstrating beyond any doubt that the photographer credited with the picture, one Adnan Hajj, had cloned smoke and buildings (to make the district attacked look more built-up, apparently) and exaggerated considerably the extent of the aftermath.

Humiliatingly, Reuters issued a "Picture Kill" notice to its clients, and later published a notice that it would no longer accept photos from Mr. Hajj. But Reuters expressed its finding that only one photograph was problematic.

Of course, we know that Reuters has since magically discovered that two of Mr. Hajj's photos were altered and has pulled all of his work. Too little, too late. Those propaganda images are out there and will be around for years to come. They are most definitely propaganda, too. Reuters can try to spin this however they want, but the fact is they are accomplices in the intentional spread of propaganda photos for Hezbollah.

But Reuters is not a purely innocent victim of a rogue photographer. Hajj's handiwork should have been discovered by any competent photo editor. Consider this: Power Line has published examples of two photos sent to the world's media showing the same building in Beirut in ruins. One of the photos says it is evidence of an attack on July 24th, and the other photo says it is evidence of an Israeli attack on August 5th.

It should have been easy for any photo editor with two functioning eyeballs to detect the summer rerun of the photo. A very distinctive building with a multi-story geometric pattern on its wall stands adjacent to the wreckage and was clearly visible in both photos. There is no other word than "negligence" to describe this kind of editing. The only reasonable alternative is "complicity."

Since the alleged indiscriminate and widespread bombing of Beirut is a cardinal propaganda theme of Hiz b'allah and its allies, repetitive use of the same photo as evidence of multiple attacks makes Reuters an ally of the terror group, fighting the information war on its behalf.

Experts in the field of public relations counsel getting on top of a problem when an organization is in a damage control situation. Staying ahead of your critics by quickly investigating and revealing the entire extent of the problem is the only way to go. Reuters has violated this well-accepted principle by refusing to admit that it has a serious problem with its photo editing.

The only way they can save their reputation at this point is to take a very, very hard look at themselves. If they think just stonewalling will help, they are mistaken. Bloggers have been hard on them before they had proof this obvious of how biased Reuters has become. Now they have the Holy Grail of proof that Reuters has a problem. They will never let Reuters off the hook unless and until they do something drastic to fix their problem.

Otherwise, this is where they are heading.

Other Links to this Post

1. Morning Coffee » Blog Archive » Reuters merging with Al-Jazera? — August 7, 2006 @ 8:59 pm