Lebanon - Photojournalism in Crisis

It's not just photojournalism that's in crisis, all of journalism is. And until journalism purges itself of its left wing agenda, it will remain in death watch. But as you can see from this article, rather than face the truth, the writer plays the victim.

(August 17, 2006) -- The Israeli-Hezbollah war has left many dead bodies, ruined towns, and wobbling politicians in its wake, but the media historian of the future may also count as one more victim the profession of photojournalism. In twenty years of researching and teaching about the art and trade and doing photo-documentary work, I have never witnessed or heard of such a wave of attacks on the people who take news pictures and on the basic premise that nonfiction news photo- and videography is possible.

Well Daivd, what did you expect when you people put out, doctored photos, staged videos and photos, admit that Hezbollah staged them and fabricated reports and you hire reporters who are openly anti-Israeli?

A media historian in the future will look back and and count the war in Lebanon as the time when journalism was exposed and its left wing soul was laid bare. A time when ordinary citicizes took back the megaphone and got the truth out.

How sad is it that jounalists consider the public, the very people whom they exist to serve, their enemy.

Perhaps it would be more reassuring if the enemy at the gates was a familiar one—politicians, or maybe radio talk show hosts. But the photojournalist standing on the crumbling ramparts of her once proud citadel now sees the vandal army charging for the sack led by “zombietime,” “The Jawa Report,” “Powerline,” “Little Green Footballs,” “confederateyankee,” and many others.

Ordinary citizens catch the media red handed, and let's be absolutely clear bout this, red handed, staging the war in Lebanon and yet we are the enemy and a "vandal army". Vandals destroy things. The media are destroying the truth and it is they who are the vandals and the enemy.

After having said all that, David gets around to admitting we are right.

In each case, these bloggers have engaged in the kind of probing, contextual, fact-based (if occasionally speculative) media criticism I have always asked of my students. And the results have been devastating: news photos and video shown to be miscaptioned, radically altered, or staged (and worse, re-staged) for the camera. Surely “green helmet guy,” “double smoke,” “the missiles that were actually flares,” “the wedding mannequin from nowhere,” the “magical burning Koran,” the “little girl who actually fell off a swing” and “keep filming!” will now enter the pantheon of shame of photojournalism.

And whose fault is that David? The enemy vandals that exposed the medias left wing bias or the media for trying to perpetrate a massive fraud on the world?

See here for an extensive list of media fabrications. And here is an extensive list of BBC bias.

See now why it is you who are the ememy vandals, David?