Wednesday, June 9, 2010

More Media Bias Revealed

On the left, the uncropped photo. On the right, Reuters' released photo. (Reuters)

Reuters Admits Cropping Photos of Ship Clash, Denies Political Motive -- FOX News

The British-based Reuters news agency has been stung for the second time by charges that it edited politically sensitive photos in a way that casts Israel in a bad light. But this time Reuters claims it wasn’t at fault.

The news agency reacted to questions raised by an American blogger who showed that Reuters' photo service edited out knives and blood traces from pictures taken aboard the activist ship Mavi Marmara during a clash with Israeli commandos last week. Nine people were killed and scores were injured in the clash.

Read more ....

My Comment: I am deliberately using FOX News .... a user of the Reuters News Agency and a media outlet that many liberals (and some conservatives) despise for being biased in their own reporting .... to highlight how the major news services are biased in covering wars and conflicts.

Am I surprised about this media bias .... are you surprised .... of course not. Journalists and their editors .... like their readers .... have their own biases .... and it will be reflected in their reporting and editing.

This is one of the reasons why I try my best to post links from numerous news agencies .... including those who may be on the opposite side of a story. War News Updates is (after-all) a blog that aggregates the news that is out there, and I try my best to lump it all together for my own info and yours.

As a bonus .... once in a while I will dump my own biased commentary on a story .... especially on stories that raise my eyebrows. I do it to work on (and improve) my English, and to clarify my own thoughts and opinions on a particular story. As to those who may find my comments annoying at times .... well too bad .... I have my own biases and opinions and I will never shy away from sharing them with you.

3 comments:

Anonymous said...

There was more photo-editing occurring than just what you've shown. There's another version of that photo where the hand holding the knife is shown, but there isn't any knife.

Then there's a picture with a different 'protestor' holding a different knife, plus a pool of blood and two commandos laid out on the deck. Only, an edited version appeared with the knife missing, the blood missing, and the second commando gone from view.

We discussed this at SNAFU! and I linked two threads from MP.net there. Those two threads contained various versions of these pictures, edited and apparently original.

http://snafu-solomon.blogspot.com/2010/06/tracking-down-these-photos.html

D. E. Reddick

WNU Editor said...

Thanks D.E. for the links.

fred lapides said...

In addition, I have seen Reuters photo showing a "peace activist" holding a bottle by the stem, close to a captured Israeli commando. When caught in faking photos, Reuters released the full picture, which wa a shot of the broken bottle, the jagged pieces (not shown in altered shot) to be used as a potential weapon, as in barroom film brawls.s