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Objective Movie Making

By commonsense | August 12, 2006 - 22:49

Go tell your family and friends they must see WTC. Old Oliver did a pretty good job on this one.

I laugh when I see those bumper stickers that say....We'll Never Forget.  I want to make one that says, We've Already Forgotton. 

This movie made me remember how I felt the day of the attacks, and I think it is a good thing for this nation to step out of its comfort coma and realize that there are people and countries out there that want the US and its 300 million people to die.

 

Reutersgate2: Ghouls - Bodies Allegedly Exhumed For Display to Photographers

By Al Brown | August 12, 2006 - 20:19

From little green footballs; a person identifying himself as freelance photographer Bryan Denton claims to have witnessed the exhumation of bodies for use in staged photographs. The photographer made the claim in the photographer's web forum, Lightstalkers; excerpt of post [emphasis added]:
...one case where a group of wire photogs were choreographing the unearthing of bodies, directing emergency workers here and there, asking them to position bodies just so, even remove bodies that have already been put in graves so that they can photograph them in peoples arms.

The poster was challenged by other posters in the forum, but refused to back off from the original allegation and added that it was not an isolated incident.

LA Times Article Bashes Media on Reutersgate

By Al Brown | August 12, 2006 - 18:59

In an article that, frankly, surprised me, the Los Angeles Times's Tim Rutten comes down hard on fellow journalists for failing to take the Reutersgate scandal seriously enough. Here, Rutten dismisses Reuters' explanations for why the altered photos were used:
There are, however, two problems here, and they're the reason this controversy shouldn't be allowed to sputter to its inglorious conclusion just yet: One of these has to do with the scope of what strongly appears to be wider fabrication in the photojournalism Reuters and other news agencies are obtaining from their freelancers in Lebanon. The other is the U.S. news media's grudging response to the revelation of Hajj's misconduct and its utter lack of interest in exploring whether his is a unique or representative case.
Then Rutten encourages readers to explore what the bloggers have discovered.

Pervasive and Systematic Bias in Middle East News Coverage: Now We Know Why

By Tom Blumer | August 12, 2006 - 17:15

It is hard to overstate the importance of what Little Green Footballs' site operator Charles Johnson learned from a clearly knowledgeable person in the news business, and revealed in a post yesterday morning. Anyone who attempts to understand events in the Middle East but is unaware of what Johnson has exposed is being shortchanged, and very likely misled.

It was only a week ago that Johnson originally caught the photoshopped "Beirut Burning" picture that sparked a blogswarm of investigations into additional photo doctoring, event staging, and other photojournalistic abuses, all of which added a new word, fauxtography, to the vocabularies of those who follow the news.

Now Johnson has expanded what began as a "narrow" photojournalism controversy into an expose of how, for decades, the news we receive from the most volatile region in the world has, in exchange for what looks an awful lot like bribery, been twisted and controlled to meet a pro-Arab, pro-terorist, anti-Israel agenda.

Gag Me With a Mango: Seattle P.I. Op-Ed Extols Cuba's Communist Agriculture [Update - Author Responds]

By Mark Finkelstein | August 12, 2006 - 16:53

You might have thought they had gone the way of the dodo bird. But as per a sighting on today's Seattle Post-Intelligencer web site, there are still defenders of communism out there in the Western press.

The P-I saw fit to accord space on its op-ed page to Andrew Buncombe of the UK's Independent newspaper. His column was entitled [not a typo] Cuba's agricultural revolution an example to the world. Actually, it could have been worse.  The P-I could have used the original Independent headline.  Ready? The good life in Havana: Cuba's green revolution.

Where did you first hear about NewsBusters?

Total votes:

AP Source Salam Daher Rescues Bodies That Aren't There

By Dan Riehl | August 12, 2006 - 16:26

An AP article white washes a Lebanese Civil Defense worker bloggers suspect of disseminating Hezbollah propaganda. And they quote a colleague who apparently doesn't have any concerns about sharing information with Hezbollah to back him up. From the article:

Twenty-eight bodies were recovered — more than half of them children.

Interesting, given that said Civil Defense worker evidently told the Lebanese press on July 30th:

The bodies of 37 children were among those recovered from under the rubble of dozens of a building which collapsed after the bombardment, said Salam Daher, the civil defense chief in the region.

Stephanopoulos Dined With Hillary Flack To Celebrate New ABC Contract

By Tim Graham | August 12, 2006 - 14:51

Fresh from his recent absurdly obvious public-relations flackery for Senator Hillary and the "dramatic sign" of her declaration that Donald Rumsfeld is incompetent and should resign, The Saturday "Names & Faces" gossip column in The Washington Post reported:

A casually dressed George Stephanopoulos, Hillary Clinton mouthpiece Phillippe Reines, and another pal enjoyed a looong dinner (three hours!) at Cafe Milano on Thursday evening. Stephanopoulos munched on beef carpaccio and an anchovy appetizer between rounds of Moet & Chandon with his buddies. Why all the bubbly? A source says the crew was celebrating the Washington correspondent's decision to extend his contract at ABC, despite serious offers from other networks.

Does Anyone Think There Might Be a Party-Based Trend Here?

By Tom Blumer | August 12, 2006 - 13:35

Here is the first of small sample of the multitude of stories out there about demonstrable Ohio vote fraud --

September 17, 2004:

Registration Volunteers Under Investigation For Vote Fraud
Individuals Investigated For Filling Out False Registration Cards
POSTED: 4:54 pm EDT September 17, 2004

CLEVELAND -- Suspected vote fraud is under investigation in several counties around the state, including Cuyahoga County, concerning voter registration cards for people who don't exist.

NewsChannel5's Debora Lee reported that three individuals are being investigated in Cuyahoga County.

These people, known as paid volunteers, were being paid by voter registration organizations to go out and sign people up to vote.

The paid volunteers would receive $1 to $2 for every registration card that they turned in, but the people under investigation are suspected of filling out the cards themselves with names of people who don't exist, so they could submit them for payment.

Cuyahoga County Board of Elections director Michael Vu stressed that it is individual paid volunteers that are being investigated, not the groups that hired them.

Sorry, I'm not buying the last paragraph based on the final and much more recent item below. And who ARE these organizations registering new voters?

Gannett Editor: Rather, Moyers, Amanpour in Morrow Mold of Greatness

By Mark Finkelstein | August 12, 2006 - 12:04

If Davie Rossie's ramblings were simply those of one more angry liberal pundit, they'd hardly merit comment. What makes his utterances noteworthy is that when Rossie isn't churning out his once-a-week column, he is editing the news for the Gannett chain. Rossie is Associate Editor of Gannett's Binghamton paper, the Press & Sun Bulletin.

In today's column, 'Once There Were Giants in Television News', Rossie laments that they aren't making TV newsmen like Edward R. Murrow any more. With what might be condemned as sexism, nay, misogyny, had it been suggested by a conservative critic, Rossie grumps that "it's mostly ex-fashion models and Playboy Playmates pretending to understand the news they read to us on cable TV."

Two Views of Murdered Peaceworker

By Al Brown | August 12, 2006 - 11:35

Angelo Frammartino came to Israel to help with a camp for Palestinian children and got a knife in the back instead. Wire service and Italian news accounts depict an idealistic young pacifist, martyred in the cause of peace. United Press International reports:
JERUSALEM, Aug. 11 (UPI) -- An Italian law student, visiting Israel to help with a camp for Palestinian children, was stabbed to death in Jerusalem in what police call a terror attack.
And, in Ansa.it, Frammartino is eulogized:
"In a world with hate running through it, a voice that firmly believed in dialogue and solidarity has been silenced," Marrazzo added. "We want to use his own words to talk about him: Make love with non-violence to give birth to peace from the womb of society'," de Palma said .
But Australian blogger Israelly Cool discovered some more details about Frammartino's pacifist philosophy.