Fake News

Yellow journalism at its finest:

KOLKATA, India - A group of Indian television journalists gave a man matches and diesel to help him commit suicide in order to get dramatic footage which was later broadcast on the news, police said on Thursday.

The man died from severe burns to his body in hospital in Gaya town in the eastern state of Bihar on Aug. 15, India's Independence Day.

Footage of the man, screaming and writhing in pain as he ran with his back on fire, was aired on several television channels. Police identified the man as Manoj Mishra.

"We have seized footage clearly showing a group of journalists handing over matches and some inflammable substance -- which we later verified to be diesel -- to the victim," acting Gaya police chief P.K. Sinha told Reuters by telephone.

Mishra, who worked as a delivery man, was upset over what he said was a large sum of money owed to him by a state-run dairy farm whose milk he transported to customers, police said.

Look at any of the casualty figures coming out of Lebanon in the world's major media organizations, and you'll see something very close to this:

The Lebanese death toll, meanwhile, rose to 842 when rescue workers pulled 32 bodies from the rubble in the southern town of Srifa, target of some of Israel's heaviest bombardment in the 34-day conflict. The figure was assembled from reports by security and police officials, doctors and civil defense workers, morgue attendants as well as the military.

The Israeli toll was 157, including 118 soldiers, according to its military and government.

What is missing from this death toll (which CBS News has now quietly removed from this web report) are the casualties sustained by Hezbollah.

Libanoscopie, a Lebanese Christian website, quotes a military expert to dismiss Hezbollah's claims of victory over Israel (this is the site that accused Hizballah of putting handicapped children in the building at Qana, then drawing Israeli fire by firing rockets from the roof).

The site is published in French. I've translated below:

Hezbollah's Fictional Victory in Lebanon

After 34 days of fighting, Hezbollah's secretary general [Hasan Nasrallah] is claiming victory, his supporters strolling to their hearts' content on the still smoking ruins of what were, a month ago, a hamlet, a village, a city; now a district where multi-story buildings have been reduced to powder, devastated by a wind that destroyed the major part of its existence.

Thanks to some intrepid digging from commenters Lancelot and Harris at EU Referendum, another video of the events at Qana has been found. This is one that I have never seen before and really shows what was going on that day. It is truly a must see for anyone that believes that the photos at Qana were staged. It completely debunks the "our photographers do not set up photos" and "the rescuers were not holding up the children for photos" claims.

Believe it or not, it is a link from Wikipedia of all places. Here's the direct link to the video. If you can't the video to load through the direct link, go to Wikipedia and scroll down to External Links (Resources) and click on the first video listed. The video is approx 13 minutes long and does have a good bit of anchorperson commentary in Arabic. Also be advised that some of the images are graphic...

Pay close attention to this footage...

At 0:53 there is new footage of Mr. Green Helmet serving as director of the scene. He's standing over some victims and gesturing to someone off camera. One thing is for sure - he is in NO HURRY in this footage.

At 8:29 we see Mr. Green Helmet taking off for his run with the little girl in the multicolored pants. What makes this interesting is Mr. Green Helmet is standing still with the child, then turns and starts off at a quick pace. As Mr. GH turns, a cameraman crosses behind him. It is obvious that Mr. GH was posing with the child for the cameraman prior to his "run".

EU Referendum, the blog that has spent as much time as anyone exposing the almost certainly staged reporting out of Qana and the adventures of Green Helmet, posts on the mystery of the extra baby.

Ray Robison posted yesterday about the mystery of the wandering prayer rug.

Confederate Yankee brought us the mysterious wandering water bottle yesterday and calls shenanigans on the same photographer today.

Yesterday, The Jawa Report brought us the mystery of the deadly drink of water.

Caption: The body of a man lays on a road in southern Lebanon... shortly after gunfire was heard in the area. Israel began slowly pulling forces out ... the declared ceasefire has already been tested by various skirmishes between combative forces. (AP Photo/Riza Ozel, Anatolia) When is a man considered something more than a man? It would seem that the bar is set infinitely high when dealing with Hezbullah, as I've tried to illustrate previously. This photograph offers another prime example: The caption mentions nothing about the body lying next to the car, other than identifying it as a "body of a man." Does the photographer bother to note that the "body" is wearing camouflage, and carrying what appears to be two AK-47's? Although to a casual observer, this would seem to indicate that the body belongs to a Hezbullah militant, our intrepid photographer doesn't seem interested in pursuing that line of thought... along with any thought of reminding the reader that only one side is really instigating skirmishes. Many thanks to FR's PajamaTruthMafia for pointing this out!

Yesterday I quipped that I found Gatorade's new energy Drink "self-Propel," after discovering a series of three pictures by Reuters photographer Zohra Bensemra. In those photos, a mysteriously mobile bottle of water appears and disappears beside an elderly injured woman that Bensemra said was waiting to be rescued, and was made to appear utterly alone.

The moving bottle and other suspicious elements in the photos lead me to believe that this series of photos, like so many already discovered coming from Arab Muslim stringers in Lebanon, were quite likely staged.

The curious composition of Bensemra's photos continued today, as this one was, err, unearthed in Yahoo's Photostream:

On August 13, a columnist for the Palestinian Territories' government newspaper surmised that Hezbullah's victory opened the door for a revived Palestinian intifada, as reported by MEMRI.

"This is an important moment, that the Palestinian resistance must seize. It benefited from [a similar moment] at the beginning of the Al-Aqsa [Intifada], when the West Bank and Gaza spoke the Lebanese language, after they had long been immersed in American and Israeli illusions. And following [the Al-Aqsa Intifada], the incomplete [Israeli] withdrawal from the Gaza Strip was carried out.

What do you know, but it would seem that today, the wires are teeming with photographs of Palestinian "youths" (all men in their 20's, from the looks of it) throwing stones at IDF soldiers. I haven't seen any photographs of Israeli troops yet, but expect to see the standard formulaic shot of a Palestinian "youth" throwing a stone at a heavily-armored Israeli tank. I'd also expect that we won't see any photographs of the terrorists who are doing any of the actual shooting at the Israelis, but we're used to not seeing that by now, right?

According to Reuters photographer Zohra Bensemra, an elderly injured woman lies injured in the ruins of her house, awaiting rescue as Bensemra snaps these pictures.

Let's for a moment try to look past the staging elements that we've become accustomed to searching for over the past weeks.

Ignore for a moment the fact that a wounded elderly woman in a bombed out building is unlikely to be in the kind of physical condition needed to drag several pristine sofa pillows through the rubble and make a bed out of them. Look past the fact that she, in her weakened condition, has found a nearly spotless black blanket in the fine gray dust of a bombed out building to cover her legs against the 80 degree cold. Ignore the conveniently-placed bottled water she somehow found intact and had for the middle photo only.

The caption for the left picture reads:

An Israeli soldier flashes a V for victory sign after receiving orders to stop firing into south Lebanon, along the Israel-Lebanon border, in the early hours. Faced with another Middle East crisis, American Jews have rallied to collect donations for Israel, although some in the community argue that funds should also be sent to war-ravaged Lebanon for aid its reconstruction.(AFP/David Furst)

And on the right, we're treated to:

Lebanese children sit atop a pick up truck as they flash V-signs and wave Hezbollah flags as hundreds of cars with displaced Lebanese returning to southern Lebanon, wait in line to pass the destroyed bridge of Zahrani that was attacked by Israeli warplanes during the month-long operations, south of the port city of Sidon, Monday, Aug. 14, 2006. Thousands of cars flooded Lebanon's bombed out highways heading south within an hour of a U.N. cease-fire taking hold, and Lebanese army troops scrambled to repair roads in time for the deluge of refugees returning home. (AP Photo/Mohammed Zaatari)

Ok. So there's nothing unusual about having a war in which both sides claim victory, and in a conflict that's as long-running as this one, I don't think we can expect anything different. But notice the differences in these photos: The Israelis are portrayed as dark, ominous invaders claiming victory, presumably against a civilian populace.

Fast and furious, the media composes, and the blogosphere disposes:

Photographer Alleges Unearthing of Bodies (from Little Green Footballs; HT e-mailer LG)

A portion of the photographer's comment (it appears that Denton's original is gone, but that another commenter reposted it within his own comment; scroll down to "Andy Levin Fri Aug 11 09:54:08")

i have been working in lebanon since all this started, and seeing the behavior of many of the lebanese wire service photographers has been a bit unsettling. while hajj has garnered a lot of attention for his doctoring of images digitally, whether guilty or not, i have been witness to the daily practice of directed shots, one case where a group of wire photogs were coreographing 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. these photographers have come away with powerful shots, that required no manipulation digitally, but instead, manipulation on a human level, and this itself is a bigger ethical problem.

Last week, I documented here the way CNN leaned over backwards for balance in a story. In the wake of the Seattle Jewish Center shooting, it equated the fear of Jewish-Americans of similar incidents . . . with the fear of Hezbollah supporters of being unfairly accused.

Although it wasn't nearly so egregious, Fox News Channel's Anita Vogel [seen here in a file photo] just engaged in some over-reaching herself in the name of balance. She narrated an otherwise solid segment on 'fauxtography' and other ways in which the media and Hezbollah supporters manipulate the news. The segment included an interview with star blogger Charles Johnson, founder of Little Green Footballs, who played a key role in outing the smoky Beirut-skyline bit of fauxtography.

But then, searching for balance where there really is little or none to be had, Vogel claimed that the Israeli government also manipulates the news:

"But we need to keep in mind, there are other ways foreign governments control the media. The Israeli government exercises control over the media during wartime, like prohibiting them from reporting on real-time rocket strikes and places in northern Israel where officials are visiting due to safety concerns."

This is just surreal:

The caption reads:

Lebanese civil defense rescuers, try to remove two blanket-wrapped bodies, found trapped under debris and concrete of the destroyed buildings, attacked late Monday by Israeli airstrike, in the southern Beirut suburb of Chiah, Lebanon, Tuesday Aug. 8, 2006. The raid on the Muslim southern suburb next to a Christian neighborhood killed at least 15 people, police officials said. (AP Photo/Hussein Malla)

The bodies were found already wrapped in blankets under the debris of the building.

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.

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.

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.

It is certainly true that a picture is worth a thousand words when it comes to news photographs, and it’s especially true of news photographs from war zones.

One of the famous photos from the war was a 1968 Eddie Adams photo for the Associated Press showing a general shooting a Viet Cong fighter in the head with a pistol on a Saigon street. That picture became the left’s rally poster for American withdrawal from Vietnam. Adams won the Pulitzer in 1969 for his Vietnam photos, but he regretted the unintended consequences to his dying day. As he wrote in Time magazine, "The general killed the Viet Cong; I killed the general with my camera. Still photographs are the most powerful weapon in the world. People believe them; but photographs do lie, even without manipulation. They are only half-truths."

The fauxtography scandal is blowing out of control as proof after proof rolls in how much of the self-described photojournalism coming out of Lebanon is illegitimate. If you're a blogger (or are reading some) covering the story, drop me an email at msheffield@gmail.com and I'll include a link in this roundup. And of course, you can link in the comments as well. Comments are now open to unregistered users.

To get up to speed, check out Riehl World View, Hot Air, the Jawa Report, and Zombie. Little Green Footballs is also very much up on the story. To see previous NewsBusters coverage of phony photos, click the relevant categories below this posting.

See below for updates...

UPDATE 6:25. After an overnight hardware failure, NB is back up and running. The links will begin momentarily.

UPDATE 6:38. Snapped Shot is another blog worth checking out. Keep those links coming, folks!

UPDATE 7:05. Via NB reader Geepers comes this link to a German TV news show proving that the infamous Salam Daher, aka "green helmet guy," is a stage manager for Hezbollah. The video shows him rehearsing the removal of a body from an ambulance and giving directions to the camera operator.

That truth is the first casualty of war has been borne home by the proliferating 'fauxtography' scandal of photographs of the current Middle East crisis doctored or staged so as to portray Israel in the worst possible light. At this point, can we look at any image from the area without a good dose of doubt?

Take this morning's report on the Today show. NBC's Richard Engel, in Tyre, Lebanon, reported that:

"The fighting has made humanitarian relief efforts almost impossible. Israel has cut roads and attacked vehicles, isolating Hezbollah and everyone else."

This was followed by a clip of the unidentified individual pictured here. Judging by his words and accent, he might have been a Red Cross official. He asserted:

"Lots of people have died because they just couldn't make it to a hospital in time. Ambulances clearly marked with the Red Cross were hit right in the middle of the roof of the car. The Red Cross stands for protection and neutrality. This should not have happened."

It seems some in the legacy media are entering into that next phase of narrative manipulation—a redefining of terms in order to 1) provide revisionary cover for its ideological fellow travelers, and 2) to fabricate and then facilitate a bandwagon effect. For instance, The New York Times this morning editorializes on the Lamont victory this way:

The rebellion against Mr. Lieberman was actually an uprising by that rare phenomenon, irate moderates. They are the voters who have been unnerved over the last few years as the country has seemed to be galloping in a deeply unmoderate direction.

An “uprising” of “moderates”? Come now. Lamonts’ supporters are to moderates what Jeffrey Dahmer was to gourmands: just because they believe themselves to be the arbiters of political taste doesn’t make them anything more than simple partisan cannibals. And I doubt very much many of his supporters would even identify themselves as moderates—though if they believe adopting the label will help them regain power or take control of the Democratic party, they’ll almost certainly suck it up and wear it in the months and years to come. The ends justify the means, after all—and the New York Times has shown itself willing to equate the Kossacks with Bill Clinton Democrats. That is, they’ve signaled their willingness to help the netroots take control of the party (see the new Kossack directive for completing the purge here)—and the plan is to do so by massaging the narrative and finding labels for the players that strike just the right chords with Americans who don’t follow politics all too closely.

Bloggers—and to a much lesser extent some media outlets—have paid considerable attention to specific examples of media manipulation in the war being fought between Hezbollah and the IDF in Lebanon and Israel, but we seem be under-covering the overall framing of the media's coverage, particularly when it comes to the subject matter chosen for coverage.

This comes into sharp relief when contrasted against the coverage we've become used to from the war in Iraq, particularly as it relates to the media coverage allowed and provided by two different insurgencies in Lebanon's Hezbollah and Iraq's predominately Sunni insurgency.

In Iraq, we’ve become somewhat used to embedded reporters reporting from both sides of the conflict with a fairly wide latitude to operate. Stringers, both print media and photographers, have occasionally embedded within the insurgency, providing coverage from ambushes and sniper's nests alike. The insurgents themselves often seem to be media hungry, filming operations themselves and often releasing the tapes to the media or producing them on DVDs for public consumption in Iraq and throughout the Middle East.

By and large, the vast majority of video reporting allowed and encouraged by the Iraqi insurgency is combat-related. IED ambushes are particularly popular, often released as montages set to Islamist music as propaganda videos. The Iraqi insurgents have often seemed intent on portraying themselves as rebel forces actively waging a war for the people, whether or not the people would always agree.

Hezbollah, however, seems to be fighting a different kind of media war.

It's unquestionable that something bad happened in Qana, Lebanon recently. Was it a massacre of innocent civilians, collateral damage, or a Hezbollah set-up?

It's starting to seem as though it was a combination of all three. The Washington Post's Jefferson Morley, Aziz P, and Ace are some of the bloggers beginning to raise this point. I've excerpted some of their arguments below. If you see any counter-arguments, post them as a comment or email them to me so I can include all sides.

UPDATE 14:25. Dan Riehl theorizes on how Hezbollah might have staged the casualties. Read on past the jump for an excerpt.

UPDATE 14:48. Power Line argues further that Arab stringers for MSM organizations are staging photos.

UPDATE 15:17. Ace has more possibly staged pix, including a mannequin improbably standing upright sporting a wedding dress.