Thursday, August 17, 2006

Great article in the Toronto edition of the Epoch Times today entitled "How Hezbollah Fights the Media War." In case you don't want to read the entire article, I've highlighted a few quotes below:

...The sharp-eyed blogger Charles Johnson spotted how a Reuters photo showing burning buildings had been photoshopped. The smoke rising from a damaged building, and the building itself, were copied over the photo—making the result of Israeli bombing look far worse than it actually was.

Other bloggers noticed similar problems with photos by the same Reuters stringer. In one example, the same unfortunate woman appears in two different pictures mourning the loss of two different homes. Eventually Reuters pulled some 900 photos and fired the photographer.

Then Michelle Malkin showed how the New York Times had published a photo of a "dead" Lebanese, said to be a victim of Israeli bombing—except the man was obviously not dead. The New York Times' own photo essay showed the same young man scampering around the rubble in a very lively way.

...In Hezbollah areas, journalists are only allowed to see what Hezbollah wants to show them. Hezbollah keeps copies of the journalists' passports. Journalists who show any independence are threatened.

...Charles Johnson describes a scene captured by a German TV video: "They actually take the body of a child out of the ambulance, transfer it from the light stretcher used in the ambulance to the heavy duty gurney used in the rescue operation (to create the impression that it has just arrived from the bombed area), uncover it, and pose it for photographs."

(This actually reminds me of a seminary class I took where a guest lecturer described a time in Jerusalem where shortly after he arrived he asked where all of the fighting was only to be told that the fighting only happens when the Palestinians see the cameras and begin throwing rocks and such, setting up death scenes, and calling on the ambulances and firetrucks.)

...Hezbollah is fighting the victim's war. The Hezbollah have built hospitals on top of their bunkers; set up rocket launchers on top of or next to apartment buildings. They have made civilian casualties unavoidable. When the civilians they have forced to be their shields are killed, then the media are brought in to cover the loss of life.

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