Blogging and War II: Democratic reports and ethic journalism
A few days ago when I blogged on Blogging and War: Can Technology change Social Processes?, I chose not to address the issue of ethics involved in journalism and the unbiased report of happenings from the field.
The issue has turned up a lot earlier than what I expected with the recent scandal involving the distribution by Reuters to the global media of doctored photos from a freelance photographer.
Now, this is not a casual photoblogger. Although Adnan Hajj, a Lebanese photographer based in the Middle East is indeed a freelancer, he has been providing pictures to Reuters since the early 90's and the New York Times has published eight of his pictures (distributed by Associated Press and Reuters) since March 2005.
Reuters announced severing all ties with the photographer and removing 920 digital photographs from its picture archives. However, a photograph submitted by another photograph found in Reuters archives is identical to one submitted before the scandal by Hajj. As a matter of fact, several of the pictures submitted by this other photographer are quite similar and from the exact same location as former photos submitted by Adnan Hajj.
The fact that Reuters, a well established news agency known for its commitment to unbiased reports from the field, can fall victim of photo alteration raises huge concern over the use of the Internet to manipulate public opinion.
I guess we can find some relief in that the fraud was discovered and denounced by bloggers, which may give us some hope and support for argument of a "democratic" media through people blogging from the field.
If a picture is worth a thousand words, I guess a explanatory video is worth a million, so let's hear the news from CNN itself, since I can not post the pictures here without violating Reuters copyrights and youtube videos remain in a grey legal area...
Another, even more disturbing photo-staging story came out yesterday, discovered and denounced by bloggers too. A dramatic narrated photo sequence posted on-line by the New York Times under the title "The NY Times Hezbollah Photo Dust Up" features a local lebanese young man running to the rescue of survivors at a bombed building, only to dramatically depict him a few seconds later as a dead victim. Sweat can be observed on what should be the cold dead body of the victim, wearing the same shorts and the hat he was wearing in the previous pics, neatly folded under his arm to avoid it from getting dirty.
