Reply #100: What strikes me is that the whole object of this manipulated photograph

[seafan]

...may have been to discredit the photojournalists, any and all journalists, who are courageously on the ground trying to report what is occurring.

Not aimed specifically at one side of this conflict or the other, but casting doubt on the legitimacy in people's minds about the authenticity of the reporting.

This real reason is now conveniently being hidden in the dust-up when we fight among ourselves about *the photo*.


It's even possible that this photographer submitted the original, un-doctored photo for publication, and it was altered later by an unknown individual. And Little Green Footballs is a very suspect source for all of these accusations. This article only states that the photographer has been suspended pending the results of the investigation. That doesn't say that he confessed. It may turn out that another party in his organization is responsible. We'll have to wait for all the evidence.



All of this reminds me of the rapid *debunking* of the Dan Rather AWOL story, by an online GOP political operative in just a few hours after that program aired. Rather's story was factual. But when the operatives began raising so much stink about *the document* Rather cited, the facts of the story were buried from the public. If you fax a copy of the Constitution to someone, the content of the fax is accurate, but the fax paper is obviously altered from the original parchment. But the facts are the same. Very slick sleight of hand by the GOP. Confuse and distort. They are masters of it.


It also reminds me of this episode: (thanks to Daily Kos, from October 28, 2004)

Appropriately titled "Whatever It Takes", the new BC04 ad uses Bush's convention acceptance speech, stirring music, and images of dedicated troops and families in the heartland. As astutely noted by mikellanes in this thread:

It also uses Photoshopped images to turn a small crowd into a large one cover over Bush at a podium:

So, another incident where altering photos is very useful to a specific set of people. We know * hates the media.

What better way to accomplish this aim than to manipulate photographs to confuse the public.


And it also tangentially reminds me of the crude forgeries of the documents that claimed that Saddam was trying to buy yellow cake uranium from Niger. Looks like these forgeries were aimed to discredit the CIA. (Wonder how it would have looked if, after the CIA insisted there was no truth to this document, that some WMD's were planted in Iraq by outsiders, only to be *found* by the outfit that embedded Judy Miller....hmmmmmmm.)



So, we must ask ourselves, "Who benefits from this manipulated photo that was given out to the public?"


In both instances above, *Co benefits. Fool Americans about the numbers of * supporters; discredit the media; incite further divisiveness among people about the Israeli-Lebanese conflict.

Suits these criminals to a "T".


Also from one of the internal links in this story:

Many other blogs have taken up the task of analyzing the photographs and news headlines from Qana, southern Lebanon, and the Middle East, including: Little Green Footballs , Hotair.com , Ms. Underestimated , American columnist Michelle Malkin , and The Riehl World View .

Interesting, isn't it?