Posted 11:37 PM by steve

Lost (so far) in the brouhaha about the staging/doctoring of photos is a discussion of the anti-Israel animus that explains why the news services are so readily willing to run such pictures.

Just as CBS did with Rathergate, where they were so set to get Bush that they failed to exercise even the slightest bit of skepticism towards the documents, so too are the news services so set on making Israel look bad (at the very least, they're sure receptive to the idea) that they're failing to pay a whole lot of attention to the photos they're running on the front page of their newspapers.

With all due respect to the abilities and talents of the bloggers who have uncovered these frauds (not to mention all the free time they seem to have), these bloggers are not doing anything the likes of the NYT and Reuters couldn't do on their own.... if only they were interested in doing so. The fact that they're not the ones uncovering these frauds is evidence of the lack of effort they're putting into verifying the legitimacy of the photos - and photographers.

And the reason they're so willing to accept as true the stuff they're given? Well, let me answer that question with a question: are the NYT and Reuters giving a free pass to Jewish photographers taking pictures of the destruction on the Israeli side of the border?

Yeah, me thinks not either...