In support of Reuters
Criticism of Adnan Hajj, the freelance Lebanese photographer for Reuters who staged a photo of smoke pouring out of a burning building in Southern Lebanon, is rife in the blogosphere. But the fact that Reuters fired him and removed all 920 of his photos from its gallery seems to have done little to ease the scorn of bloggers.
There is no excuse for what Hajj did -- that much is clear, and the blogging world is right in jumping onto it and holding him accountable. But, at least as clear is the fact that Reuters is taking this incident very seriously, and is doing everything it can to preserve its integrity. As such, the extent of the criticism, particularly by bloggers, who have little or no standards to live by when it comes to their own writing and photography, except for watchful readers, seems a little over the top.
A Newsbusters blog post reads: “Last night's report 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."
This from the same world of blogs that hardly has a reputation for accuracy and fact-checking themselves. There are countless examples: Blogs spread untrue rumours about Circle Group Holdings CEO Greg Halpern. While they did a good thing in spreading the word about Kryptonite bike locks that could be unlocked in three minutes with a ball point pen, but they also spread other rumours, e.g. that all Kryptonite locks were susceptible, that it only happened with Kryptonite locks, among others. And several bloggers posted press releases word-for-word from Wal-Mart without attributing them, leading readers to believe that they were unbiased posts -- or at least written by the bloggers.
The fact that blogs have taken on a watch dog role in keeping main stream media in check is admirable. But, blogs also tend to go overboard in criticizing the main stream media, even when the organization in question takes every measure possible to rectify the situation.
Questions about many other photos taken by Hajj have surfaced following the one that got him fired. And Reuters should have realized sooner that something was wrong. Just like the New York Times should have realized sooner what Jayson Blair was up to. And Washington Post should have realized what Janet Cooke was up to.
Bloggers have not been kind to Reuters. And neither should they be. But they should realize that Reuters as an organization wasn't complicit in what Hajj did, and that Reuters' mistake was not faking the photos, but not catching it before it moved on the wire.
There is no excuse for what Hajj did -- that much is clear, and the blogging world is right in jumping onto it and holding him accountable. But, at least as clear is the fact that Reuters is taking this incident very seriously, and is doing everything it can to preserve its integrity. As such, the extent of the criticism, particularly by bloggers, who have little or no standards to live by when it comes to their own writing and photography, except for watchful readers, seems a little over the top.
A Newsbusters blog post reads: “Last night's report 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."
This from the same world of blogs that hardly has a reputation for accuracy and fact-checking themselves. There are countless examples: Blogs spread untrue rumours about Circle Group Holdings CEO Greg Halpern. While they did a good thing in spreading the word about Kryptonite bike locks that could be unlocked in three minutes with a ball point pen, but they also spread other rumours, e.g. that all Kryptonite locks were susceptible, that it only happened with Kryptonite locks, among others. And several bloggers posted press releases word-for-word from Wal-Mart without attributing them, leading readers to believe that they were unbiased posts -- or at least written by the bloggers.
The fact that blogs have taken on a watch dog role in keeping main stream media in check is admirable. But, blogs also tend to go overboard in criticizing the main stream media, even when the organization in question takes every measure possible to rectify the situation.
Questions about many other photos taken by Hajj have surfaced following the one that got him fired. And Reuters should have realized sooner that something was wrong. Just like the New York Times should have realized sooner what Jayson Blair was up to. And Washington Post should have realized what Janet Cooke was up to.
Bloggers have not been kind to Reuters. And neither should they be. But they should realize that Reuters as an organization wasn't complicit in what Hajj did, and that Reuters' mistake was not faking the photos, but not catching it before it moved on the wire.
posted by Anonymous at 9:30 PM
2 Comments:
And, as you suggest, many bloggers are completely free to have their own "smoke and mirrors."
Perhaps the salient point is that we can never completely trust the motivations, the innocence of any one group or individual.
In support of discernment.
Ah, the livelihood factor. Good point!
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