BREAKING NEWS: There is no news on Steve Centanni's or Olaf Wiig's condition, but a previously unkown group is claiming to be the ones holding them. They are demanding a prisoner exchange.
A previously unheard of Palestinian group, the Holy Jihad
Brigades, claimed responsibility on Wednesday for kidnapping a Fox News
cameraman and correspondent, Al-Jazeera satellite TV reported.
American correspondent Steve Centanni, 60, and cameraman Olaf
Wiig, 36, of New Zealand were kidnapped Aug. 14 from their TV van near
the Palestinian security services headquarters in Gaza City. Although
Palestinian militant groups have often seized foreigners, including
members of the media, this is the longest any have been held.
A previously unknown militant group in Gaza claimed
responsibility on Wednesday for the kidnapping nine days ago of two Fox
journalists and demanded the United States release "Muslim prisoners"
within 72 hours.
"Release what you have, and we will release what we have," the "Holy Jihad Brigades" said in a statement obtained by Reuters.
Fox News Channel correspondent Steve Centanni and cameraman Olaf
Wiig were abducted by masked gunmen in Gaza City on Aug 14 as they were
working on a story.
The group did not say what would happen to the two journalists if
the United States did not meet their demand to release Muslims in
American prisons by the time the deadline expires on Saturday.
"If you implement our conditions we will implement our promise, otherwise you will have to wait," the statement said.
Michelle Malkin is encouraging a blogburst to bring more publicity to the plight of the newsman and his cameraman. I'm with Michelle in her disgust for the way other news media are treating this story. They don't like Fox, so to hell with Steve and Olaf. It is sickening and so very petty.
If you care about Israel, if you want to really understand what just happened at the United Nations with the Cease Fire resolution, if you want to understand about North Koriea and Iran, and if you want to understand period, then you must, repeat MUST, listen to this interview. Get yourself a soda or a cup of coffee, get comfortable and sit back and listen. It's long, but it will play in the background. Pamela at Atlas Shrugs writes:
I
had the enormous priviledge to sit down with John Bolton today and
discuss at length the UNSC ceasefire, Israel, Hezb'Allah, the War on
Islamofascism, Iran, August 22nd, the puppet government of Lebanon,
Olmert .............listen to it all, it's a real eye opener. No holds barred
, I ask the tough questions and got the hard answers.
From a Powerline article today this article assessing Israel progress sounds depressing. To think, however, that Israel can stop until they've wiped these terrorists out, take a look at the chart.
Every day, we are told how many rockets the terrorists fired into
Israel, but it is hard to put the numbers into perspective. Blog of the
Week Vital Perspective supplies this very helpful chart ...
Put aside the fact that the editorial starts out with "It is now 26 days since Hezbollah and Israel began their latest combat [1] — a very long time for the world to allow such a deadly conflict to rage in the Middle East powder keg.". Well it is hard to put that arrogant and so utterly stupid statement aside I know. The New York Times, Bill Keller in particular, are so ignorant, they have become dangerous to all of us. Here is a taste, but go read it all:
9. The NY Times is now on record recommending that Hezbollah be provided with a way to claim victory.
This may be the most astonishingly inane, idiotic, absurd and downright
stupid bit of lunacy that has ever been published. Hezbollah is a proxy
for Iran, which is flexing its regional muscles and, oh by the way,
developing nuclear weapons as part of an apocalyptic mission. How, exactly, will bolstering Iran's terrorist arm help the world confront the Iranian threat?
The only person even more idiotic, arrogant, and ignorant than Bill Keller is his boss, Pinch Suhlzberger. They are terror enablers, terror appeasers, and proponents of massive dhimmitude. Treasonous, in my opinion, too.
Because of my back problems, I now blog from a comfortable recliner with my laptop on my lap (hmmm guess that is why they call it a laptop), where I can keep my legs elevated and save what little is left of this creaky body for the really important activities like walking to the bathroom. My recliner is naturally placed to be the comfortable chair for my TV, so while I blog, the TV is always on and almost always tuned to cable news. I channel surf and try to catch the latest breaking news at the appropriate times. I have waited and waited and waited some more to hear even one word regarding the scandal over the doctored Reuters photos. So far, in hours of TV listening, nary a word.
Last night's report by Charles Johnson
of Little Green Footballs that a "Beirut burning" photo that was
clearly and clumsily doctored with Photoshop editing tools had made it
way onto the wires from Reuters has morphed into what must be
considered a full-blown scandal that should, by rights, shake the news
service and other "Mainstream" Media outlets to their very foundations,
and force them to reexamine how they conduct and control their
photojournalistic efforts around the world.
Yes, you would think that a media that thrives on the smallest discrepancies of politicians, celebrities and anyone on the conservative side of the aisle would at least mention a scandal that is attracting worldwide attention. A Hollywood actor/director makes some inappropriate remarks while blotto from alcohol and those remarks generate days of coverage, print, broadcast, and electronic, but deliberate falsification of pictures under the banner of one of the principal wire services gets nada. Let your mind imagine for a moment what the mainstream media, in particular the New York Times, would publish if the Bush administration doctored war pictures. There is something very wrong with more than Adnan Hajj's picture, the big picture is totally out of whack.
Newsbusters puts forth the following points to consider:
-- Reuters has "dropped" the freelance Lebanese journalist after the image in question was shown to be doctored ...
-- The wire service offered perhaps the lamest excuse ever offered in the history of photojournalism for Adnan Hajj ...
-- Several blogs have begun analyzing Hajj's available body of work (link is to a page containing the first 10 of an estimated 346), and it is not faring well under the scrutiny.
-- Drinking from Home has noted possible problems with Reuters photos from a different photojournalist.
-- To show that the idea of staging events may not be unique to Adnan Hajj, Sweetness & Light
seriously questions, based on his whereabouts and his apparent
nonchalance, whether the person the media reported as the father of a
slain Lebanese girl was indeed her father.
... the ability of Adnan Hajj to be in so many places nearly
contemperaneously might raise questions as to whether he has been the
actual picturetaker on all of the photos submitted in his name.
-- Dumb Looks Still Free
is proposing a set of guidelines for photojournalists, including a
requirement that photos' "raw digital data (be) made available freely
for examination by the public" -- before any touching up of any kind
was done for publication purposes.
Wars today, since Vietnam, are TV wars and psyops is the most important aspect of war in today's electronic and visual world. People do not take the time to read long treatises, they are influenced by what they see. Pictures are worth a thousand words. When those pictures are false, the conclusions reached by the viewer become false by extension. This is unacceptable. The media is fond of saying they only report the facts, but more and more we are discovering that there is alot of wiggle room in their facts. When one man's fact is another man's fiction, a picture of the actual event is often used to clear up the discrepancies, but when the picture itself has been doctored, posed, manipulated, or set up, its value is zero and we, as decision makers (voters) are left with nothing on which to base our decisions. I find this incredibly disturbing.
The bloggers were right, the photo was doctored. Malkin has all the details here and asks more questions.
[NOTE:Little Green Footballs is advising that their site is running slow due to the incredible amount of traffic after the yNetnews story [see first UPDATE] has brought worldwide attention. They are doing their best to provide more bandwidth.
So many people are trying to get in to Little Green Footballs this
morning that our doors are starting to get jammed with HTTP requests.
In English, this means it’s going to be a little slow around here for a
bit. One web server can only do so much, even on a dedicated box.
The details of why everyone is interested follows.If ever you needed an example of what a blogswarm looks like, this is it.]
Reutered:
Corrected version:
See additional updates and comments at the end of this post.
******************** END ALERT ********************
When I saw this first set of a Beruit photo broken down, I wasn't sure I was seeing what the blog authors posting the photo were seeing or expected me to see, even after seeing what Ace claimed might be the original photo. I have since changed my mind. Several bloggers, including Left and Right and Photoshop expert Allah Pundit, have had a chance to work with the photo and now that I see them all together and the enlargements, I'm much more convinced. Michelle Malkin has full coverage and is waiting for an answer to her inquiry to Reuters and Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut? (LGF)
has the best shots to see what is going on. Malkin also includes a link to SportsShooters.com, a photography site and they, seem (in comments) to agree also that there is something odd going on with this photo.
OK, now things are getting weird.
This Reuters photograph shows blatant evidence of manipulation.
Notice the repeating patterns in the smoke; this is almost certainly
caused by using the Photoshop “clone” tool to add more smoke to the
image. (Hat tip: Mike.)
It’s so incredibly obvious, it reminds me of the faked CBS memos.
Smoke simply does not contain repeating symmetrical patterns like this,
and you can see the repetition in both plumes of smoke. There’s really
no question about it.
But it’s not only the plumes of smoke that were “enhanced.” There are also cloned buildings. (See below.)
Flopping Aces is also covering this and has questions of his own about another photo by the same photographer.
UPDATE: Is Adnan Hajj the same Adnan Hajj as this? “WSG” is the Wire Services Guild, which is now the News Media Guild.
I have no idea what any of that means with regard to Adnan Hajj,
though. Does that mean he used to be a freelance photojournalist? Maybe
it means nothing. I don’t know.
US blogs, photographers: Reuters photo of smoke rising from Beirut 'shows blatant evidence of manipulation'
Yaakov Lappin
A Reuters photograph
of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has come under attack by
American web logs following suspicions that the photograph was
distorted to show more smoke and damage.
The photograph shows two very heavy plumes of black smoke
billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the
Lebanese capital.
Charles Johnson, of the Little Green Footballs blog
, which has exposed a previous attempt at fraud by a major American news corporation, wrote
: "This Reuters photograph shows blatant evidence of manipulation.
Notice the repeating patterns in the smoke; this is almost certainly
caused by using the Photoshop “clone” tool to add more smoke to the
image."
Johnson added: "Smoke simply does not contain repeating
symmetrical patterns like this, and you can see the repetition in both
plumes of smoke. There’s really no question about it."
A series of close ups are then posted on the blog, showing that
"it’s not only the plumes of smoke that were 'enhanced.' There are also
cloned buildings." The close ups do appear to show exact replicas of
buildings appearing next to one another in the photograph.
The Sports Shooter web forum
, used by professional photographers, also examined the photo, with many users concluding that the image has been doctored.
'Looks so obviously doctored'
"I'll second the cloned smoke...but it looks so obvious that I
don't know how the photographer could have gotten away with it," wrote
one user.
After further research, Johnson posted a photograph he says is
the original image taken before distortions were made, showing much
lighter smoke rising. Other blogs have also analyzed the photographs, and reached similar conclusions, such as Left & Right
, which states: "The photo has been doctored, quite badly."
The author of the Ace of Spades
blog wrote: "Even I can see the very suspicious "clonings" of picture elements here. And I'm an idiot."
The Hot Air blog also looked at the photo, describing the image as "the worst Photoshop I have ever seen.
According to the Reuters response, the photo was doctored and has been replaced. As a blogger who depends frequently on pictures to tell my story, I find this whole mess very disturbing. Adnan Hajj, the photographer, has been responsible for many of the more provocative pictures that have come out of Lebanon and it puts in question the entire story. A picture really is worth a thousand words, but it shouldn't generate a thousand words regarding the accuracy of the picture.
The AP said information from its photo editors showed the events were
not staged, and that the time stamps could be misleading for several
reasons, including that web sites can use such stamps to show when
pictures are posted, not taken. An AFP executive said he was stunned to
be questioned about it. Reuters, in a statement, said it categorically
rejects any such suggestion.
"It's hard to imagine how someone sitting in an
air-conditioned office or broadcast studio many thousands of miles from
the scene can decide what occurred on the ground with any degree of
accuracy," said Kathleen Carroll, AP's senior vice president and
executive editor.
Carroll said in addition to personally speaking with photo
editors, "I also know from 30 years of experience in this business that
you can't get competitive journalists to participate in the kind of
(staging) experience that is being described."
Dan Riehl helps us all understand the photos and I for one am glad to see this explanation. I'm not very good picking out anything that requires spacial ability. Thanks Dan. (Go read it the whole explanation.)
Assuming that an operation like Reuters might start talking about
lighting, photo angles, negatives and such, I wanted to document the
photoshopping in a point by point fashion. I hope the Images below (1,
2 and Inset) accomplish that. They are enlargements taken from images
everyone now has, you can find them here at lgf.
For more on this story, check out some of these other links to bloggers who are on the story. And as usual, I encourage you to check out the comments sections where some of the juiciest info always resides.
Update - I'll be doing a call in radio interview with WTVN in Ohio on this shortly. You can catch the streaming here. Link fixed.
The Reuters story is literally exploding on too many blogs to link, see Memerorandum.
I have a new issue regarding Adnan Hajj and Reuters, though we may not
be able to get a straight answer. Take a look at the two images below.
And for those of you who might not have seen this last week, let's not forget the infamous Pallywood ... a real in your face on how the terrorists manipulate and make the news and worse, how our own MSM buys into the fakery.
Dan Rather/CBS's use of phony documents to lie about the president's
National Guard service; false reporting throughout the Katrina disaster
in hopes of embarrassing the president; the New York Times/Washington Post
publishing of national security secrets for, in part, the purpose of
preventing the interrogation and monitoring of the enemy; Reuters's
doctoring of war photos to undermine our ally, Israel, as it seeks to
defend itself against the enemy, etc.
Belmont Club calls it a "Blast from the Past ... watch the 50 year old video and see if you ask the same question ... what has changed? After watching, head on over to Belmont Club and read the excellent comments
Bill Quick: "If Americans felt the same way about Islam that much of Islam seems to
feel about the US, then much of Islam would no longer exist. Kahmeni
and his fellow maniacs seem to be working as hard as they can to bring
about that end."
THE AIM OF EDUCATION IS TO TEACH US HOW TO THINK, NOT WHAT TO THINK.
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COMMENTS ENCOURAGED
THE AIM OF EDUCATION IS TO TEACH US HOW TO THINK, NOT WHAT TO THINK.
This site is designed for and best viewed in Firefox with view at 1249x778px
Firefox allows you to resize your font/type size as well as resize the page and/or the resolution for easier reading. This is especially helpful for those still using 800x600 resolution monitor settings.