It says something when the biggest conservative media scandal you can cite is Gannon, which was pretty much a nothing story... and you forgot that Red State blogger who was outed as a serial plagiarist.

I wrote about the New York Times a while ago (http://wizbangblog.com/2006/03/30/recalibrating-the-new-york-times.php), but the principle holds true: if the media was just lazy and sloppy, that'd be one thing. But they are consistently wrong IN THE SAME DIRECTION. After a while, you have to stop chalking it up to coincidence and start wondering if there's an agenda, a systemic bias, in inherent prejudice, that's causing it all.

J.

Another scandal that I seem to have missed. I think I'll just go back to photoshopping pictures of Oprah Winfrey.

How is Reuter's fixing the problem a bad thing?
I don't understand this.
I understand how this can be extrapolated into a "very bad thing" damning of all things journalistic. But only if you fall for that either / or garbage. Either Reuter are biased terrorist sympathizers OR they are an unbiased organization who agrees with us.

I don't have time for people who think this way. It's not the world.

I'm not buying it.
I'm smarter than that.
So are most people. Many just like to play dumb.
And I'm thrilled an unethical little maggot of a photographer got canned. All his photos were ripped from the Reuters library. What more could you want?

Temple, you're missing the context here.

Reuters has always held itself out as the "Rolls Royce" of news services -- the best, the exemplar. Further, they and the rest of the mainstream media have repeatedly boasted of their multiple levels of fact-checking and error-catching editors and supervision, as opposed to bloggers, who are "a bunch of people who sit at home in their pajamas" (or in my case, my underwear). Yet here we have Reuters publishing photos that are so clearly faked and promoting a certain perception and opinion that nearly anyone who looks at them can see they're bogus -- yet they got past all those editors.

Further, that one photo led to an examination of a lot of the photographer's other photos -- and uncovered another faked AND misleading photo (an Israeli jet dropping a flare to ward off potential heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles becomes an Israeli jet firing several missiles and dropping several bombs -- a defensive action becoming a very offense one), as well as numerous others that show strong evidence of being staged. This guy got away with a LOT for a LONG time until he got lazy and his fakery was so flagrantly obvious that literally thousands of amateurs all cried out "oh, come on!" -- but not one single Reuters official caught the slightest hint that there was a problem.

The question then becomes why, and there are only two possible explanations: 1) Reuters is incredibly inept; 2) Reuters didn't mind the faked and staged photos for some reason. Even their staunchest critics will not say Reuters is that inetp. And considering that their readers' trust is their biggest asset, it must have been a very powerful reason for them to not apply what they themselves describe as "rigorous standards" to these photos -- and the one that springs to mind is that they liked the photos that supported their political agenda, the one that paints Israel (and, by extension, the West) as aggressive, violent butchers of the innocent.

What more could we want? Well, some have suggested that Reuters post all his photos they own and let the same folks who found the first fakes (for free, the same photos that their editors could not or would not judge them) and see what else he's gotten away with. Or perhaps they should make their vetting process a bit more rigorous and transparent, to try to win back the public trust.

Or maybe they could simply dispense with the myth of impartiality and admit that the reason this photographer got away with so much for so long was that he supplied them with what they needed to reinforce their biases.

Nah, that last one's just a pipe dream.

J.

Temple, you're missing the context here.

Reuters has always held itself out as the "Rolls Royce" of news services -- the best, the exemplar. Further, they and the rest of the mainstream media have repeatedly boasted of their multiple levels of fact-checking and error-catching editors and supervision, as opposed to bloggers, who are "a bunch of people who sit at home in their pajamas" (or in my case, my underwear). Yet here we have Reuters publishing photos that are so clearly faked and promoting a certain perception and opinion that nearly anyone who looks at them can see they're bogus -- yet they got past all those editors.

Further, that one photo led to an examination of a lot of the photographer's other photos -- and uncovered another faked AND misleading photo (an Israeli jet dropping a flare to ward off potential heat-seeking anti-aircraft missiles becomes an Israeli jet firing several missiles and dropping several bombs -- a defensive action becoming a very offense one), as well as numerous others that show strong evidence of being staged. This guy got away with a LOT for a LONG time until he got lazy and his fakery was so flagrantly obvious that literally thousands of amateurs all cried out "oh, come on!" -- but not one single Reuters official caught the slightest hint that there was a problem.

The question then becomes why, and there are only two possible explanations: 1) Reuters is incredibly inept; 2) Reuters didn't mind the faked and staged photos for some reason. Even their staunchest critics will not say Reuters is that inetp. And considering that their readers' trust is their biggest asset, it must have been a very powerful reason for them to not apply what they themselves describe as "rigorous standards" to these photos -- and the one that springs to mind is that they liked the photos that supported their political agenda, the one that paints Israel (and, by extension, the West) as aggressive, violent butchers of the innocent.

What more could we want? Well, some have suggested that Reuters post all his photos they own and let the same folks who found the first fakes (for free, the same photos that their editors could not or would not judge them) and see what else he's gotten away with. Or perhaps they should make their vetting process a bit more rigorous and transparent, to try to win back the public trust.

Or maybe they could simply dispense with the myth of impartiality and admit that the reason this photographer got away with so much for so long was that he supplied them with what they needed to reinforce their biases.

Nah, that last one's just a pipe dream.

J.

In fact, Temple, it's so important that I felt it was worth saying twice.

David, feel free to delete either one...

J.

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