Archive for the 'World Politics' Category

29
Mar

Movie Review: Fitna

By Cynapse 7 Comments
Categories: Movie Reviews, Religion, Reviews and World Politics

Title: Fitna
Release: 2008
Genre: Documentary
Run Time: 15 Minutes
Studio/Publisher: Geert Wilders
Rating: 20%

Geert Wilders, leader of the far-right Dutch Party for Freedom (PVV), released a bombshell in the form of Fitna – a self-proclaimed documentary and wake up call to Europe in the face of growing Islamicization. Arabic for “disagreement and division among people”, Fitna has caused much division among nations and even within the ranks of those critical to radical Islam. Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist whose bomb-laden depiction of Mohammed resulted in worldwide riots and death threats, publicly condemned Wilders’ use of his drawings due to the film’s sweeping indictment of Islam as a whole. Web host Network Solutions suspended film’s website and video streaming company LiveLeak hosted the movie for only two days. Pakistan briefly banned YouTube while Al Qaeda has issued a fatwa against the blonde instigator. Controversy, thy name is Geert.

Fitna The Movie (screenshot)

Information-wise, Fitna offers little new material to those who have spent much time studying radical Islam. The 15-minute presentation consists of gory footage spliced with inflammatory Muslim speeches and confrontational suras from the Qur’an. Some viewers will recognize footage originally seen in Islamist documentaries like Beneath the Veil and Cult of the Suicide Bomber. Other video includes of people jumping from the Twin Towers during the 9/11 attacks and neatly-edited clips of executions by Iraqi insurgents.

The soundtrack consists of passages from Edvard Greig’s brooding “Aase’s Death” and Tchaikovsky’s “Arabian Dance” looping intermittently between apocalyptic Muslim prayers. Much of the dialog is in Arabic so most viewers will rely on the [thankfully minimal] English/Dutch subtitles. There is no narration in the film per se but the violent speeches by Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and various Imams set the pace just as effectively.

The latter portion of the film pushes the immigration buttons familiar to Wilders’ PVV platform. Under the title “The Netherlands of the Future?”, a graphic slideshow displays images of gay/female executions, blood-smeared children and female circumcisions. This macabre presentation is followed by a series of inflammatory news headlines:
“We do not agree with freedom of speech, because we denounce democracy”
“Explosive increase honor killings in Amsterdam”
“School closes on muslim holidays”
“Jihad-lessons in elementary school”
“Foreign imams allowed in more quickly”
“Mosques under the spell of radical muslim group”
“Suicide commandos in the Netherlands”
“Hamas gathers in Rotterdam”
“Mosque: turning the Netherlands into a muslim state”

Fitna The Movie (screenshot)

Fitna closes with a short clip of a hand turning a page of the Koran. The image fades as the sound of a page tearing is heard. The implication is quickly followed by the message “The sound you just heard was a page being removed from the phone book. For it is not up to me, but to Muslims themselves to tear out the hateful verses from the Quran”. The film’s final message states that Muslim Europeans have no interest but to conquer the west and that Islamic ideology must be defeated by freedom-loving Europeans as Nazism and Communism were before it.

It shouldn’t even need to be said that Fitna is a hatchet job, plain and simple. Compressing 15 minutes of footage and inspiration from Islam’s violent minority and passing it off as the summation of a centuries-old religion that contains over a billion followers smacks of a “solution” in search of a problem. A structurally identical film could be made in the Islamic world about the invasion of Christian (re: coalition) warriors, splicing scenes of dead Iraqi citizens with violent passages in the old testament and assorted rants by Jerry Falwell. The facts presented would be “true”, but hardly representative of the entire Christian world.

Nontheless, such a film would stand as firm proof to Islamists about the need for Muslim forces to crush the Christian enemy. Fitna will appeal similarly to modern-day crusaders who have already convinced themselves of the necessity for a second Crusade.

Fitna The Movie (screenshot)

Offense is in the eye of the beholder, so it would be difficult for an outsider to say whether this film warrants the extreme outcry and calls for censorship – perhaps that’s a Westerner mindset. Stronger anti-Islamic sentiment has long existed on the pages of FrontPageMag or Little Green Footballs and to my knowledge neither of these online publications have been threatened.

Fitna preaches a drastic scenario to the converted and would likely fail to penetrate mainstream Western thought even if it were given wide release. Wilders’ political associations, combined with his decision to attack all of Islam rather than its extremist elements, will cost credibility among discerning audiences.

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28
Nov

Movie Review: Zeitgeist - The Movie

By Cynapse 29 Comments
Categories: American Politics, Movie Reviews, Politics, Reviews and World Politics

Title: Zeitgeist - The Movie
Release: 2007
Genre: Documentary
Run Time: 116 Minutes
Author: Peter Joseph
Rating: 68%
URL: http://www.zeitgeistmovie.com/ (watch online)

After an excessively long introduction, Zeitgeist launches into a dissection of religion (titled “The Greatest Story Ever Told”), and by religion the film-makers mean Christianity. A brief summary of astrology gives way to a comparison of earlier Middle-Eastern mythologies to the mythology which predated all of them. Indeed there are many coincidences to between the Egyptian Sun God Horus and the central figures of later faiths:

  • Horus was born December 25th to the virgin Isis
  • He was adorned by three “kings” who followed an eastern star
  • He was deemed a prodigy at 12 and was baptized at the Age of 30
  • He traveled with 12 disciples and traveled around performing miracles like healing the sick and walking on water
  • His alternate names included “Lamb of God”, “The truth, the light”
  • He was betrayed, crucified, buried from the dead and rose three days later

Anyone who paid attention during Sunday school or at least made an effort to read a bible (a group encompassing fewer Christians that one would think) should be a bit uneasy, as the Story of Jesus Christ is nearly identical - only the names differ. Strangely (or perhaps not) the same general sequence of events can be found many other mythologies across the world. The film then attempts to link common attributes of these stories to astrological symbolism and does a fairly convincing job of it.

None of this information (or at least the discussion of its legitimacy) should be new to armchair theologians, but it was not initially clear why Christianity was singled out above all others for astrological plagiarism - it was not the first, last or worst offender among the emerging faiths. Eventually, the answer is provided - the Romans apparently invented the myth of Jesus Christ solely to exercise social and economic control over Europe. Never mind Karl Marx’s Opiate of the Masses attack - the Zeitgeist narrator directly refers to Christianity and similar faiths as “the fraud of the age”. Them be Fightin’ words.

Alas, Zeitgeist is a film about conspiracy theories - an emphatic diatribe of how small groups of shadowy figures conspire to control the masses.

Bush’s Brawn

The second part of the movie, titled “All the World’s a Stage”, attempts to prove that the US government plotted the 9/11 attacks in New York and contracted the dirty work to international resources. Provided evidence includes a mixture of the apparent “TV clips of witnesses describing a second explosion”, the questionable “government efforts to hide any conclusive evidence of a Boeing 757 hitting the Pentagon” and the perplexing “the demolition-like accuracy with which the buildings collapsed”. Again, the viewer is presented with a series of facts that are true or at least believable, some arousing anecdotes and a consequential induction that implicates shadowy powers.

If film-maker Peter Joseph can be credited for one thing, it’s flawlessly utilizing Dale Carnegie’s yes-yes technique to influence the viewer. Like any good conspiracy theorist, he starts with information that is true (yes #1), follows with information that is apparent enough to make the viewer question previous dogma (yes #2) and inserts his interpretation of what is driving those occurrences (in this case, that the US government intentionally detonated the twin towers). One major distinction between a conspiracy theory and a valid explanation is that conspiracy theories rarely work inversely as deduction. As a Math Professor of mine loved to recite, proving all poodles are dogs does not prove all dogs are poodles.

Hand in my Pocket

The third section is called “Don’t Mind The Men Behind The Curtain” and deals with disproportionate influence exercised by early banking tycoons like JP Morgan and John D Rockefeller. The stock market crash of 1929 is alleged to have been deliberately engineered by the “international bankers” to allow a large-scale cash grab and easy purchase of failed rivals. The 1933 American gold seizure, establishment of the US Federal Reserve and the major world wars of the 20th century are also attributed to the objectives of the international bankers, who stood to gain from the interest on loans made to both the state and consumers. These bankers are never clearly defined after the first generation of financial barons. More alarmingly, the Federal Income Tax is declared unconstitutional - a declaration backed by a pair of former IRS agents who testify to avoiding tax payment for years without penalty. Perhaps they could share what they know with Wesley Snipes.

Zeitgeist closes, strangely, with a motivational speech about unity and how the human race should unshackle themselves from the social structures imposed by a diabolical few. It did provide levity for an otherwise bleak film, but nonetheless sounded kitschy.

Worth a Tin-Foil Hat?

Is Zeitgeist worth the watch? Probably, as you can watch it for free via the URL provided above. The movie also provides an opportunity to test your critical thinking - the real enjoyment in indulging conspiracy theories is not self-congratulation for being skeptical, but being able to explain precisely where they fail.

Conversely, you may find yourself occasionally saying “wait a minute!” and questioning what you thought you knew. Sadly, conspiracy theories are one of the few remaining outlets for some good old-fashioned, politically-incorrect debate, and one area Zeitgest excels at is stimulating debate. Invite a friend or two over and have fun.


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04
Sep

New Swiss Immigration Law Causes Controversy

By Emilia Liz 4 Comments
Categories: Politics and World Politics

Switzerland is known for a number of things, like the St. Bernard dog, the cuckoo clock, the Swiss army knife, and my all-time favourite the Brown Swiss cow. Now the country is making news for another reason: a proposed law that would deport immigrant families if their child were convicted of a violent crime, drug offence, or benefits fraud (see story). The bill is being presented by the nationalist Swiss People’s Party. If the party collects enough signatures in its favour, a referendum will be held on the bill and it could become law.

The proposal has, not surprisingly, been described as racist. First off was the campaign poster showing three white sheep kicking out a black sheep over the words, in German, “For security.” While the term “black sheep” as in “black sheep of the family” generally does not have any racial connotations, critics charge that this particular sheep conjures up images of dark-skinned criminals. In 2004 the Swiss People’s Party used a poster depicting black hands reaching into a pot filled with Swiss passports in a – successful – bid to restrict immigration to the country. The party has also proposed a ban on the construction of minaret towers alongside mosques. On the other hand, it is difficult to tell whether the group is racist per se, that is, in the sense of believing that Whites are superior to members of other races and should receive preferential treatment. For example, the party has called for the cancellation of Swiss aid to Eastern Europe, a region where nearly all the inhabitants are White.

Ueli Maurer, president of the Swiss People’s Party, does not seem too perturbed by this criticism. He reports that there have been “no complaints” about his proposal and expresses confidence that “as soon as the first ten families and their children have been expelled from the country, then things will get better at a stroke.” Furthermore, the party claims that foreigners, who constitute roughly a fifth of Switzerland’s population, are four times more likely to become involved in crime than are Swiss nationals. According to an official study conducted by the Federal Foreigners’ Commission, non-citizens are in fact overrepresented in violent offences.

The bill has been attacked as well on the grounds that it hearkens back to the Nazi practice of “Sippenhaft” (kin liability) whereby a criminal’s family members were punished alongside the offender him- or herself for the crime in question. On one hand, the idea that an individual might be held accountable and made to pay for a relative’s crime goes against our sense of justice. Even the supposedly wrathful God of the Old Testament states that “Parents must not be put to death for the crimes of their children, and children must not be put to death for the crimes of their parents.” Though deportation rarely leads to death, the substance of the argument remains the same.

Nonetheless, many of us feel that at a moral if not legal level parents are responsible to a certain extent for the conduct of their children. As another Biblical saying goes, “Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.” Certainly most people would recognize some mitigating circumstances. For instance, few would entirely blame the adoptive parents of a teenager born with fetal alcohol syndrome for an offence he or she might not even be aware of having committed. The vast majority of parents, though, have at least some control over how their sons and daughters turn out.

Another issue raised by the Swiss People’s Party’s bill deals with the rights of non-citizens when they commit crimes in their country of residence. Even individuals such as myself who would probably oppose a law that penalized parents for the misdeeds of their offspring might agree there is a strong case to be made that non-nationals guilty of serious offences in their adopted nations forfeit their right to continue living there. Canada faced this dilemma twice in 1994 and again in 2005. In separate incidents, Georgina Leimonis, police officer Todd Baylis, and Jane Creba were killed by people who had been ordered deported from Canada after committing violent crimes here. In the aftermath of the murders, some legal experts, professors and newspaper columnists (like the Globe and Mail’s Michael Valpy) argued that deporting the offenders in question would be too harsh because they had spent most of their childhoods in Canada, the “only country they knew.” They simply had never become Canadian citizens. One might counter that citizenship is like marriage: if you take the step of obtaining citizenship of a particular country, you are entitled to certain rights and protections that those who decline to do so are not, just like, as I wrote in a previous article, married couples should enjoy privileges that their common-law counterparts do not. Therefore by not making an effort to get the proper papers, the killers of the three above-mentioned individuals lose the legal as well as moral right to stay in this country. (Of course citizens who commit crimes should be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.) In this respect the Swiss proposal to deport immigrants – though not their families – who fail to abide by the laws of the land in which they reside would probably not strike most people as a great injustice.

The future of this bill is yet to be seen. Stay tuned.

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03
Apr

Letter to Chicago Tribune (Re: Annex of Oradea)

By NewsJunkie 0 Comments
Categories: World Politics

From the original article (Chicago Tribune):

Helene Beck Deutch: 1906 - 2007. Photographer in 1930s and ’40s
…
Born in Debrecen, Hungary, she grew up in the Transylvania town of Nagyvarad, which was later annexed by Romania and renamed Oradea. Mrs. Deutch moved with her family in 1924 to Paris, where she studied photography at the Sorbonne.
Later, she became a photographic assistant at Vogue in Paris, then found work as a commercial photographer with a French printing firm.
In 1931 in Paris, she married sculptor Stephen Deutch, who also had emigrated from Hungary. Unable to earn a living from his sculpture, he learned photography from his wife, according to their daughter Annick Smith.

(from letter written directly to the author)Mr. Long,I would have expected far better quality in research from an organization such as yours.Writing that the Transylvanian town of Oradea was annexed by Romania is akin to claiming Black Africans in South Africa ‘annexed’ what was then land within an apartheid South Africa from the Afrikaaner Dutch settlers.

Transylvanian Romanians (and Germans) voted to join with the Romanian kingdom in 1918 - mainly due to the institutionalized racism that the Magyar minority imposed upon the majority population. This “Magyarization” was particularly brutal after the establishment of the dual monarchy in 1867 - where Austrian influence in the region offically faded. Similar injustices were experienced by other people who were ruled by the minority Hungarians in their ethnic homelands - Slovakians, Serbians, and to some extent Croatians.

I hope there is no racist agenda behind your research, and that your writing simply reflects a lack of adequate resources at the Tribune.

-NewsJunkie

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25
Jan

The Movie Industry Threatens Canada … Foolishly

By Cynapse 2 Comments
Categories: American Politics, Politics, Technology and World Politics

(Via Jack’s NewsWatch) Canada.com is reporting that movie distributor Twentieth Century Fox –apparently on behalf of the entire American film industry- is threatening to delay releases in Canada due to rampant piracy:

As much as 50 per cent of the world’s pirated movies come from Canada, prompting the film industry to threaten to delay the release of new titles in this country.
…
Changes to laws in the United States have seen movie piracy in that country plummet … one man caught with a camcorder in a theatre was jailed eight years and fined $250,000.
…
Because of movie piracy, a U.S. congressional committee has added Canada to a “country watch list” that includes such well-known piracy havens as China, Russia, India and Malaysia.

As a member of the The Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), Fox is attempting to scare Canadian authorities into ignoring such trivialities as terrorism and serial murder in order to recover Hollywood film profits.

Could 20th Century Fox and other film studio truly be contemplating delaying movie releases throughout Canada to pre-empt the release of pirate movies overseas by a few days? Unless the lot of them has gone completely mad, the answer is almost certainly “no”. Retarding a prosperous market to stem the proliferation of inferior products to and from an unstable market is economically dubious. Furthermore, the suggested course of prevention and punishment would only irritate legal movie goers while presenting little or no deterrent to pirates familiar with modern data transfer technologies.

Camcorder Movies are Poor Quality

It is important to understand the nature of these Canadian bootlegs before assessing the validity of Fox’s threats. First, consider the source - As the article states, movie pirates are literally recording movies using camcorder in the theatre. In the hacking world, these bootleg movies are known as “Cams” and are known for having extremely bad quality: Camera angles are usually not perfect since the camera has to be obscured by the bootlegger in order to avoid arrest. This means plenty of shaky pictures, cutoff images (most camcorders record video in 4:3 aspect ratio – the same as television – whereas theatres show movies in 16:9 widescreen), and silhouettes of moviegoers getting up to go to the washroom. The sound is typically recorded using the camcorder’s internal microphone, making the sound unclear and easily drowned out by cell phones or audience chatter.

To be fair and balanced, there are bootleggers who make deals with theatre owners to record movies in an empty theatre; however, even under perfect shooting conditions (the camera is placed on a tripod with a direct connection to an external audio source), the picture quality of a bootleg –in this case called a Telesync bootleg- would still be poor because video cameras simply can’t photograph television or movie screens with any degree of accuracy (for a live demonstration, try videotaping your own television!). Thus, any camcorder videos produce a quality slightly worse than home-taped VHS cassettes – definitely unacceptable in most first-world nations and increasingly unacceptable for even third world nations.

Now consider the destination format of the bootlegs. Originally these videos were sold on VideoCD discs, a low-resolution CD-based format popular in Asia but generally ignored in North America. Until a few years ago, VCD’s were dominant in the Far East and sold for between $0.75US and $2.50US. However DVD’s have since taken over and tend to retail for around $7.00US.

While Cams and Telesyncs were good enough for VideoCD discs, their low quality is quite visible on bootleg DVD’s and are avoided by people even slightly concerned about quality or who would otherwise be willing to pay for the “movie experience”. In other words, camcorder bootlegs threaten the movie industry the way home cassette taping threatens CD sales – not greatly.

Asia is an Unstable Market; Canada is Not

Quality is only part of the story, however. Fox news knows as well as anyone that Asia is very much a market dominated by individual merchants who survive on offering basement bargains (which inevitably includes piracy of films, music, video games and computer software). There is little chance that the entertainment market will be dominated by Blockbuster-style chains that can be easily influenced by MPAA threats or demands. Moreover, there is little incentive for Asian authorities to comply with American demands – any job or economic losses caused by piracy of American films will not affect local Asian economies but the sales of those discs could stimulate economic growth. Furthermore, India and Hong Kong both have prosperous film industries (the former being the largest film industry in the world) far more likely to successfully lobby for legal favor against pirate activities.

Asian piracy is also inadvertently perpetuated by protectionist government policy. China in particular limits the number of foreign films released on Chinese screens in order to favour the local film industry. Chinese consumers respond by seeking illegal copies of the movies online or through the underground market, contributing to the staggering 93% of Chinese film sales purchased illegally.

By comparison, Canada is very prosperous market upon which the MPAA has great influence. Last weekend alone, the top 10 box-office films in Canada grossed $5,440,837, with Fox’s own “Night at the Museum” taking first place [source: Tribute.ca Top 10 Movies in Canada, January 19-21, 2007]. As the article states, there are also guards at many Canadian cinemas actively looking for camcorder pirates, since Hollywood IS the local film industry (at least indirectly).

Piracy Logistics Have Advanced

The US watch list referred to in the article states that Canada has become a “dumping ground” for imported pirated goods from Russia and the Far East. This claim is rather dubious for the simple fact that these logistics are outdated for present-day movies. Aside from DVD and VCD, bootleg films can also be compressed into DivX files, which are MPEG-4 based computer files famous for allowing high quality video streaming over a low bandwidth. A 2 hour movie ripped directly from DVD can be compressed into a 700MB file that looks virtually identical to the original file. Transmitting such a file over a high speed internet connection from Russia to Canada can be done in a matter of hours. In fact, online pirates and casual internet users do so frequently using advanced file sharing technologies like BitTorrent. A transmitted DivX file can be converted back to a DVD for duplication and distribution in the local market. Transmitting pre-manufactured pirated movies from abroad is both expensive (in a market where black market movies will not sell well if priced for more than about $6) and unnecessarily risky. One has to assume the MPAA is aware of these technological advances.

Verdict: “Not … Very … Likely”

So to review Fox’s threat in terms of the information provided above and the original article –

  1. Fox would have us believe that the sale of sub-VHS quality movies in a market where over 90% of purchased films are pirated has a significant impact on their bottom line
  2. Fox and other movie studios are willing to stifle a prosperous, primary movie market over which it does have legal influence in hopes of indirectly forcing compliance on a struggling, secondary market where it has limited legal or political influence.
  3. Canadian police and customs officials should waste millions of dollars searching for bootlegged media entering/exiting via Canadian ports when a piracy operation of average aptitude realizes the cost saving and risk reduction of transmitting one copy and replicating locally.
  4. Fox is upset because Canadian authorities won’t jail camcorder pirates for as long as our nation jails murderers

One can only hope that Fox is merely saber-rattling to scare Canadian authorities into recouping some supposedly lost revenue (which is a dishonest argument, but that will be another post), because if this is an actual anti-piracy strategy then the mighty film studio is in bigger financial trouble than they think.

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31
Dec

Video of Saddam Hussein Execution

By Cynapse 0 Comments
Categories: Noteworthy Events and World Politics

2006 has been unkind to dictators. Right-wing strongman Augusto Pinochet passed away from heart attack complications, Left-wing strongman Fidel Castro is gravely ill (possibly with cancer, depending on who you ask) and unexpected to regain control of his impoverished nation. Robert Mugabe and Bashar al-Asad suffered no personal injuries but probably wish they had chosen alternative career paths.

However Saddam Hussein’s demise is on everyone’s mind for this final day of 2006. The former Iraqi president, one time asset in the war against Iran and eventual nemesis to the first Bush administration, has been sentenced to death by hanging. There are numerous places where you can read about Saddam’s legacy –

Wikipedia
BBC

However, what everyone wants to know is whether the video of the actual hanging is available for viewing. From what is known so far, Arab television networks did in fact film the entire execution but have stopped short of televising the fatal part of the final act. There is also a cell phone video of the completion execution (see below). Morbid fascination aside, one question remains – does the world gain anything from viewing the death of a tyrant?

In short, yes. It is important for the people of Iraq to view the death of the former president for two reasons. Firstly, seeing Saddam killed will help bring closure to a long and brutal era in Iraqi history. Many Iraqis will continue to be afraid to speak out against the man who once killed detractors using a human paper shredder so long as there was even a minute chance that he could return to power. The Kurdish people learned the brutality of Saddam’s reprisals after the USA retreated following the first Gulf war, and most of the nation would be in serious danger if Hussein ever did become president again.

Secondly, publicizing the execution of Saddam Hussein sends a message to all foes of the American terror effort. Far from being inclined to negotiate, fundamentalist Islam understands only one language- violence. Saddam Hussein hanging for all to see tell Islamic fundamentalists that if they continue to violate human rights worldwide in the name of religion, the USA will intervene decisively and with similar brutality (while technically executed by the Iraqi government, the prosecution of Saddam was obviously inspired by American action). Whether or not you happen to agree with the methods or goals behind the war on terror, it must be acknowledged that fundamentalists understand intent only in black & white terms, negating the grey-area negotiations popularized by the UN etc.

So without further ado, here are the videos. First, a high quality news clip documenting the moments up to the hanging then a lower quality clip of the full execution.

Google Video of full Execution

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07
Aug

Reuters Drops the Ball

By Cynapse 1 Comment
Categories: Media, Politics, Uncategorized and World Politics

Merely days after CU expressed reservations about the accuracy media coverage in the Middle East, a new controversy has erupted:

Reuters, the global news and information agency, told a freelance Lebanese photographer on Sunday it would not use any more of his pictures after he doctored an image of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on Beirut.
The photograph by Adnan Hajj, which was published on news websites on Saturday, showed thick black smoke rising above buildings in the Lebanese capital after an Israeli air raid in the war with the Shiite Islamic group Hezbollah, now in its fourth week.
“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.

Granted Ms Whittle has a job to do, but she really needs to learn the difference between removing dust marks and cloning. The former involves the removal of “specks” on a digital photographs, and cannot possibly result in the disparity of colors shown below. By contrast, cloning involves copying a portion of a photograph to another part of the photograph. When done well the picture looks seamless and unaltered. Poor cloning results in an apparent texture pattern, which is clearly visible in the smoke patterns of this photo.

beirut-original.jpg

A possible original photograph (Source: LGF)

beirut-pshopped.jpg

Beirut Photograph, as Published by Reuters

Reuters has lost any media source’s most important asset – credibility. Already, pundits are questioning the validity of Reuters’ Qana photographs and no doubt other photographs from Hajj are under scrutiny.

The original charge of photo manipulation was made by Charles Johnson of the popular Pro-Israeli blog Little Green Footballs. For his effort, Johnson was threatened via email and the email was IP traced to none other than Reuters. Current speculation is that Inayat Bunglawala, Media Secretary of the Muslim Council of Britain, may have been involved in creating the threat. Meanwhile, more charges of doctored and staged photos are being levied by the hour.

The discovery of the doctored photos and forced admission of error by Reuters represents a huge victory for the blogosphere; by forcing a large media conglomerate to admit error and correct its ways, the independent online media has established itself as a semi-reliable check and balance on news disseminated by the mainstream media.

The loser in this skirmish is obvious. Hajj is clearly the instigator of the controversy, but clearly the blame belongs with the editing staff at Reuters. With a topic as divisive and high-stakes as the conflict in the Middle East, the news agency should be going over every piece of information it receives with a fine-toothed comb. Reuters could easily argue that LGF and other blogs attacking this story are partisan and no more interested in accuracy than Hajj, and they might be right; however, Reuters is supposed to differentiate itself from blogs (for which there is no minimum bar of journalistic integrity) with original, accurate and verified content. By not adhering to such standards, Reuters gives the public no reason to trust their reports any more than those of any idealist with a Blogspot account.

Also, Reuters, fire your PR department. That was a terrible excuse.

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