With the fauxtography/Reutersgate scandal widening, accounts of Israeli atrocities by wire service employees who are also local residents directly affected by the fighting need to be examined carefully. Especially when coincidences begin to stack up.

Two wire service employees, one an Associated Press photographer and the other a Reuters reporter, were in the same convoy fleeing Israeli-occupied Marjayoun when the convoy was attacked, killing several people.

At least one of them is a Marjayoun resident, as is Salam Daher, better known as Green Helmet. Green Helmet has been accused of staging media events at Qana.

It doesn't take much to offend liberals' exquisite sensitivities. The latest? Referring to Islamofascists as . . . Islamofascists. Chris Matthews got the ball rolling on this evening's Hardball. But Charlie Rangel upped the ante to the max, managing to impugn Christians and Jews in the bargain. Fortunately, GOP Congressman Dan Lungren had the guts to call Rangel on it.

Matthews got things started by challenging Lungren: "Would you include Hezbollah in that group [of Islamofascists]? Would you include Hamas, they are they enemies of Israel. Are they also enemies of ours? Are they also fascists because they have a dispute with Israel? Anybody who is against us is a fascist now."

Rangel sent things to the moon a bit later with this line: "You take Islamic and you call them fascists, you call them radical. You never called Hitler a Christian fascist. This is insulting to an entire religion."

The AP loves their hit piece reporting, don't they? Hot on the tail of the terror plot being stopped by the British, AP has let us all know of that nefarious "Bush staff" that wants to eliminate funds to develop bomb detection devices here in the USA.

In "Bush staff wanted bomb-detect cash moved," AP writer John Solomon took what was a common request for a re-direction of funds from one thing to another and turned it into an overarching plot by the Bush administration to materially harm Homeland Security. Worse, he tried to contrast this everyday Washington budget activity to the terror plot in England to leave the reader with a feeling that Bush was trying to allow terrorists to get away with the kinds of plots that the Brits uncovered.

JERUSALEM (AP) - Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has accepted an emerging Mideast cease-fire deal and informed the United States...

Meir said the military offensive would continue for the time being. It was not immediately clear if it would be halted after the U.N. Security Council vote on the cease-fire deal in coming hours, or only after the Israeli Cabinet has endorsed it.

What is the AP saying?

JDW

It is interesting how the MSM covered the primaries this year. Especially the Lieberman/Lamont fight in Connecticut, naturally. But, looking over the coverage I saw a strange difference in how the MSM treated the Connecticut race and one not so nationally known in Michigan. Apparently, according to the media, a victory by a liberal counts for more than a victory by a conservative.

To illustrate my point, I will use two Associated Press reports made on the very same night, Primary night, August 9th.

We all know what happened with the Lieberman/Lamont contest, of course. Lamont eeked by Lieberman with a spread of only 10,119 more votes (of 283,055 cast) than the 3 term Democratic Senator giving Lamont 52% to Lieberman's 48%. This is hardly a landslide by any honest reckoning. Yet, the MSM played this like a groundswell for Lamont. Here is how the AP reported it on election night...

Looks like NBC's David Gregory is ready to hit the club.

Check out this video clipped from the August 11 Today show. NBC's chief White House correspondent was caught on camera chair-dancing to the music of R&B artist Chris Brown.

It's good to see Gregory in a good mood.

I hear he was pretty depressed when his re-design for the White House briefing room was rejected.

 

 

Video clip (44 seconds): Real (1.2 MB) or Windows Media (1.4 MB), plus MP3 audio (217 KB)

"Okay, for this next shot, we're going to need you over here."

"Good use of ketchup on that corpse."

Apparently stung by criticism of his comments on last night's Hardball, Brian Williams has responded with a clarification at the Daily Nightly, the in-house blog of the NBC Nightly News. In doing so, Williams seems to have coined a new phrase, claiming to have been 'aggressively misunderstood' by his critics.

As noted here, on last evening's 7 PM Hardball, Chris Matthews asked Williams about the latest terror plot members who were "people who have lived in London and England and the free world for all these years that become citizens, subjects of the Crown, and, yet, after having gotten to know us, they want to kill themselves to hurt us."

Responded Williams: "And that, Chris, that last aspect, the willingness to take one's own life -- I always tell people there are guys on our team like that, too. They're called Army Rangers and Navy Seals and the Special Forces folks and the first responders on 9/11 who went into those buildings knowing, by the way, they weren't going to come out. So we have players like that on our team."

Will the New York Times write stories on how eavesdropping is what alerted U.S. authorities to the terrorist airplane attack? Time magazine reported in an exclusive that the "U.S. picked up the suspects' chatter and shared it with British authorities."

The operation involved cooperation between British and American authorities.

Britain's MI-5 intelligence service and Scotland Yard had been tracking the plot for several months, but only in the past two weeks had the plotters' planning begun to crystallize, senior U.S. officials tell TIME. In the two or three days before the arrests, the cell was going operational, and authorities were pressed into action. MI5 and Scotland Yard agents tracked the plotters from the ground, while a knowledgeable American official says U.S. intelligence provided London authorities with intercepts of the group's communications.

The Wall Street Journal says media and Democratic opposition to the programs now looks foolish after the foiled terror plot.

The plot was foiled because a large number of people were under surveillance concerning their spending, travel and communications.

I've been meaning to write something about the latest blog-bashing from the keyboard of Columbia J-school dean Nicholas Lemann but haven't had the time. Thankfully, New York Press's Russ Smith and my friend Bob Cox have taken care of the task for me. Before quoting from them, here's a taste of Lemann's sour grapes, actually saying that the legacy media never have been elitist and, in fact, are reflective of the average American:

American journalism began, roughly speaking, on the later Stuart Britain model; during Colonial times it was dominated by fiery political speechmakers, like Thomas Paine. All those uplifting statements by the Founders about freedom of the press were almost certainly produced with pamphleteers in mind. When, in the early nineteenth century, political parties and fast cylinder printing presses developed, American journalism became mainly a branch of the party system, with very little pretense to neutral authority or ownership of the facts.

A related development was the sensational penny press, which served the big cities, whose populations were swollen with immigrants from rural America and abroad. It produced powerful local newspapers, but it’s hard to think of them as fitting the priesthood model. William Randolph Hearst’s New York papers, the leading examples, were flamboyant, populist, opinionated, and thoroughly disreputable. They influenced politics, but that is different from saying, as Glenn Reynolds says of the Hearst papers, that they “set the agenda for public discussion.” Most of the formal means of generating information that are familiar in America today—objective journalism is only one; others are modern academic research, professional licensing, and think tanks—were created, in the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, explicitly to counter the populist inclinations of various institutions, one of which was the big media.

In fact, what the prophets of Internet journalism believe themselves to be fighting against—journalism in the hands of an enthroned few, who speak in a voice of phony, unearned authority to the passive masses—is, as a historical phenomenon, mainly a straw man.

It's important to remember that photographs don't necessarily have to be modified to be propaganda. Consider this one, sent out by the Associated Press from their coverage of the London protests.

Notice how the photograph was taken from a low angle? The photographer clearly intended to present a "David vs. Goliath" scenario, with the United States predictably being shoe-horned into Goliath's role. (It's comforting to see that ANSWER has already modified their protest to be against the "US/Israeli war.") Who fills the shoes of the righteous David? Why, of course—Hezbullah does!

I have a feeling we'll be seeing more of this photo, as it's much more "emotion-filled" than the one taken moments before.

I look forward to continuing with my hunt for photographic propaganda.

A new study out by the liberal Pew Hispanic Center says immigration has no negative impact on Americans' job prospects.

Naturally, The Washington Post jumped on it. But while reporter Kim Hart included the study's detractors in her story, she suggested Pew was a gold standard of neutrality in policy research.

It's not.

Here's an excerpt of my article available at the MRC's BusinessandMedia.org.:

Hart added that Pew “has published respected polls and reports on the role of Hispanics in the United States.”

But Pew doesn’t merely study the Hispanic population in the U.S., it advocates policy, including more federal spending on immigrant children and a large guest worker program.

NBC anchor Brian Williams has been reading viewer emails on the air, and Katie Couric will also allow viewer input when she becomes an anchor at CBS.

Reports the New York Post:

'THE NBC Nightly News" has a new feature - viewer e-mail.

At least three times in the past few weeks - most recently on Wednesday - anchorman Brian Williams has concluded the newscast by reading a handful of e-mails from readers.

He even read one e-mail from a viewer who complained about his choice of wardrobe, which the viewer compared unfavorably to the clothes worn by ABC News anchor Charles Gibson.

Your official Friday thread. Captionfest nominations, jokes, and whatever else.

UPDATE 14:38. From the not-exactly-media-bias department: MSNBC host Tucker Carlson is going to be on "Dancing with the Stars." HT: Insty.

Ladies and gentlemen, I give you the all-feared leader of al Qaeda, Osama bin Laden, who will say a word about yesterday's plot to visit more death and destruction on innocent people in the West.

Osama, proceed.

Osama, we're waiting.

Osama, you there?

Hold on a second. You mean no one's going to take "credit" for yesterday's brilliant plan?

OK, granted, OBL (aka UBL, aka POS) may have been ground to bone fragments 2 years ago when his cave/home came crashing down on him courtesy of an American bunker buster and a sound-alike may have been subbing for him in his audio recordings, but you mean there's no member of al Qeada willing to stand up and be counted?

Ohhhh, that's right... you missed! M1, Pakistani intelligence, and NSA "read" the play and sacked your QB. So that's why the world's collective pond scum has been silent. You have nothing to crow about. "9/11 the Second" was thwarted. Well, guess what, guys. Now it's our turn. And we're not going to miss. Get that, losers?

How strong is the word "martyr"? After the death of Abu Musab al-Zarqawi last June, Aljazeera.net reported that a Jordanian got in trouble for using that word to describe Zarqawi, his former countryman.

Jordan's parliament has condemned an Islamist MP for calling Abu Musab al-Zarqawi a "martyr" and demanded that his party question him and three other members for attending the dead al-Qaida leader's wake.

Mohammed Abu Fares tried to ease the blow of his statement.

He said later that the term did not apply to Jordanians who died in last November's triple hotel blasts in Amman. The attacks were claimed by al-Zarqawi's group.

All this controversy over a word that CBS correspondent Jim Stewart used freely yesterday to describe the would-be plane terrorists who were stopped by the British government.

Shortly after 9:00 this morning, MSNBC anchor Contessa Brewer introduced a report on the potential political ramifications of plot that was foiled by the British yesterday. Her introduction was questionable, but not necessarily offensive:

Here we are, a day after this plot's uncovered, and already the focus has turned to politics, and who gets the credit for this terror bust, and was it the US War on Terror?

MSNBC reporter Kevin Corke then reported from Texas. He had some political analysis, all of which was fairly straightforward and non-controversial. He reported on the President's comments from yesterday, and the fact that he's been in pretty constant contact with British Prime Minister Tony Blair. At no point during the report did he report on the President doing, or quote the President, or any member of his administration saying, anything that could be construed as a partisan political statement. Nothing. It was a straight news report, and everything that was reportedly said or done was related strictly to the arrests and the ongoing war.

Contessa's takeout from the report?

It comes like a punch to the gut, at times like these, when our leaders blatantly use the nation’s trauma for political gain.

Profound words, from the NY Times. And, of course, we all remember when they said that. They've pointed out how the Democrats have attempted to use the trauma of every dead American soldier for political gain. They've criticized John Kerry and Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. They've excoriated John Murtha and Ned Lamont. Attempting to score political points on the flag-draped coffins of American servicemen. It's reprehensible behavior, and the NY Times has rightly called them on it.

Oh, wait - no they haven't. As a matter of fact, if memory serves, they've actually played that same tune themselves. So, what, exactly, are they talking about in this editorial today? Who do they think is "blatantly us[ing] the nation's trauma for political gain" if it's not the Ned Lamonts of the left? Why, it's Ned Lamont's opponent, Joe Lieberman!

Those burly hawks of the Boston Globe are at it again. With a Landis-like testosterone rush, the Globe's editorial this morning, Tarring the majority, rips George H.W. Bush for failing to have taken out Saddam at the conclusion of Operation Desert Storm. Or as the Globe so sneeringly put it:

"The weakling-in-chief who failed to oust Saddam Hussein in 1991 was not a Democrat but the first President George Bush."

Yes, we all remember those rousing Globe editorials urging the first war against Iraq. And who can forget the glorious martial strains of its editorial opus "On to Baghdad!" at war's end? Or not.

MSNBC's Keith Olbermann has a history of pushing conspiracy theories questioning whether the Bush administration has politically timed terror alerts or the release of terrorism-related stories for political advantage. Since the timeline of the current terror plot story was controlled by the British, one might expect Olbermann to take a break from his fascination with such ideas. But, true to form, the Countdown host still found a way to insert an anti-Bush conspiracy theory into the story, as he questioned whether some of the Bush administration's recent criticism of Democrats for ousting pro-Iraq War Senator Joe Lieberman had been timed to exploit the terror story that would soon break. (Transcript follows)

I guess we should have predicted this. After all, in the minds of many in the mainstream media, history began on March 20, 2003, when America invaded Iraq; unless absolutely necessary, all prior events relating to terrorism are to be ignored.

As such, we shouldn’t be at all surprised that a New York Times front-page story about the recent thwarted terrorist plot in Great Britain tied the event to the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. However, the reference to Lebanon was extraordinarily specious, as this plan clearly has been in the making for many months, and hatched well before the recent escalation between Hezbollah and Israel.

Alas, consistency and logic aren’t important to America’s press anymore, especially three months prior to a crucial election. With that in mind, the following sentence won’t shock even the least cynical of NewsBusters readers:

Putting aside more conspiratorially-minded critics of the mainstream media, genuine practical concerns and mounting evidence suggest Western media has been co-opted by Hezbollah in Lebanon to a significant agree. So much so, in fact, that it may be unable to paint an accurate picture of the current conflict.

The two year old image at right is from a Reuters video of Palestinian terrorists escaping from an action in Israel with the aid of a UN van. Video here. The decision by America's MSM not to publish it at the time may represent press bias, or that its concern for American's right to know is somewhat selective. However, it also serves to make another important point.

Service organizations like the UN and the Red Cross often rely on local individuals to flesh out their staffs. Obviously, there are areas of the world where it's difficult to tell the good guys from the bad and sometimes the bad guys may represent the majority of the local population. Such may be the case in Southern Lebanon and it invites the kind of co-optation witnessed above.

With the MSM having decided to rely heavily on local stringers in covering the Israeli Hezbollah conflict in Southern Lebanon, their coverage appears to have fallen prey to manipulation by a terrorist group, or at least its propaganda machine.

In case anyone thought the Cuban people had had no free press, trades unions or political parties for fifty years, and were thus unable to express what they think, here's the BBC telling us they applaud Castro's henchmen

from today's BBC Online News report about the U.S. Appeal Court's decision to uphold the red inflitrators' sentences.

'...In Cuba, the five - Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, Rene Gonzalez, Gerardo Hernandez and Ramon Labanino - are seen as heroes who tried to save the country from attack by exiles..'

And no doubt Castro is not seen as a dictator? Thank you BBC, friend of every subversive it finds.

Living here in Jakarta, we only have the Jakarta Post's pro-communist drivel to read. Surely Western sources ought to do better.