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Media trends digest – 2006

Fauxtography: Revelling in media bias online (14 August)
Revelations that a Reuters photographer released a digitally doctored image of a bomb strike in Lebanon shows how the ongoing debate about propaganda in news coverage is being driven online –- not through lofty ideals of objectivity but opinion and outrage.
The doctored image, circulated during the weekend of 5 August, during the Lebanon-Israel conflict, depicted plumes of smoke over buildings in the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on Beirut. The plumes of smoke were obviously exaggerated.
“Notice the repeating patterns in the smoke; this is almost certainly caused by using the Photoshop ‘clone’ tool to add more smoke to the image,” explains US-based Charles Johnson, who runs the neo-conservative weblog littlegreenfootballs.org and has been credited with bringing this case to the attention of the public. This site is currently recording over 100,000 visits daily.
Initially, Reuters denied that the picture was purposely changed.
"The photographer has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under," said Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters on 6 August, after the manipulation of the image was exposed.
Since then, nearly 1000 pictures from the photographer, Lebanese freelancer Adnan Hajj, have been withdrawn by Reuters.
Whilst this incident has received little coverage in the mainstream media, it has become the subject of detailed discussion on many politically themed websites and weblogs. The spotting of the doctored image actually followed discussion threads in the “blogosphere” critical of Hezbollah’s media tactics about suspicions that pictures taken by Hajj in the Lebanese town of Qana were staged.
Spin off forums on this topic now include: the conflicts of interest for local photographers working for wire agencies; photojournalistic ethics and which Photoshop tools are fair to use; and the “arts” of photo staging and digital manipulation – described as “fauxtography”. These forums cross-reference and feed off each other and have continued to snowball and bring up new allegations over the last week.
Lack of mainstream media interest in this fauxtography or “Reutersgate” scandal is also a topic in these forums, with anti-Israeli bias, sensationalism, editorial incompetence and self protection the most commonly cited explanations.
“Some of it is in-built bias and some of it is plain sloppiness,” according to UK-based Richard North in his blog EUReferendum.blogspot.com. “I have worked in journalism and know how often one goes for the easy option: asking the same ‘experts’, quoting the same sources, using the same copy or pictures. And when the balloon goes up, as it has done with Reuter’s this week-end, the immediate instinct is to try to wriggle out.”
This incident may come as little surprise to the average media consumer, who seems to place less and less credence in news media, according to the latest research from the State of the News Media report from the Project for Excellence in Journalism, an institute affiliated with Columbia University Graduate School of Journalism, and the Pew Institute, an independent opinion research group that studies attitudes toward the press, politics and public policy issues.
The State of News Media 2006 report found that: “Since the early 1980s Americans have come to view the news media as less professional, less accurate, less caring and less moral. Pollster Andrew Kohut has concluded … that Americans increasingly believe that news organisations act out of their own economic self-interest, and journalists themselves act to advance their own careers.”
Pew’s research also found that the credibility of most major news organisations has been steadily slipping over several years, and is still sliding or has bottomed out in 2006.
Furthermore, according to Pew, media consumers’ own personal and political views will influence which media outlet they rate as credible. For example, it found that an increasing number of media consumers who vote Republican give Fox News Channel the highest rating for believability, while those who vote for the Democrats favour CNN and programs such as NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.
This kind of divergence in itself is the basis for some of the media-watching weblogs that have been stimulating debate over the last week, for example, the honestreporting.com site which aims to monitor anti-Israeli bias in mid-east news reporting or newsbusters.org which aims to expose liberal media bias.
So while media consumers may be cynical about bias in news reporting, they may still be attracted to news reporting and commentary that does not challenge their world view. The growth in fauxtography in the blogosphere also suggests that many Media consumers are attracted to the opportunity to question and challenge news reporting that does not reflect their beliefs.
None of the sites generating the most discussion about the Lebanon images purport to exist as news outlets, although some aim to counter perceived bias in mainstream news reporting.
These sites clearly have their own political agendas driving their media criticism and while they are not the “usual suspects” for highlighting media bias, they are generally transparent and open for debate. These sites also offer an outlet for media consumers to actively engage and question the media reports that they do not accept, an advantage over mainstream media sites, which have comparatively few open forums or detailed analysis.
The State of the News Media report sums up this trend ”In the future, we may well rely more on citizens to be sentinels for one another. No doubt that will expand the public forum and enrich the range of voices. Already people are experimenting with new ways to empower fellow citizens to gather and understand the news”
Instances like the pictures from Hajj, and other cases of fauxtography, aid this process.
“Certainly the media faces significant challenges when trying to accurately portray a conflict, or an all out war. Competition in their business today is keen and the bottom line, as well as image, drive media outlets to constantly produce interesting news,” said Dan Rhiel of riehlworldview.com weblog.
“Unfortunately, at a time when the average individuals trust of the media is less than good and dwindling, coupled with the advent of alternative media, large media operations are likely doing themselves even more harm by appearing to have abandoned the dedication to veracity required for any news media to be objectively thought of as truly good.”
By Daisy Hoffmann
Links:
Warning: Some images displayed in these sites are graphic. The veracity of the photographs may be in question, but viewers may still find them distressing.

Reuters reports on the doctored image and its response:
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L06301298.htm
http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/N07348592.htm

Discussion of the techniques used by this photographer on Little Green Footballs blog:
http://littlegreenfootballs.com/weblog/?entry=21956_Reuters_Doctoring_Photos_from_Beirut&only

Blogs comments on Fauxtography noted above:
http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/media_bias/index.html
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/07/milking-it.html
http://eureferendum.blogspot.com/2006/08/what-we-are-up-against.html
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/critiques/Bold_Distortions_and_Outright_Lies.asp
http://www.honestreporting.com/articles/45884734/reports/The_Photo_that_Started_it_All.asp

More on Fauxtography from the Blogosphere – including new themes emerging in Fauxtogrpahy, such as the staged “toy in rubble” shot:
http://pajamasmedia.com/2006/08/reutersgate_adnan_hajj_edition.php
http://www.slublog.com/archives/2006/08/the_passion_of.html
http://www.leftandright.us/index.php/site/reuters_faking_photos
http://hotair.com/archives/2006/08/05/the-worst-photoshop-ive-ever-seen

Photographers on Fauxtography – very interesting for a technical and ethical point of view:
http://www.lightstalkers.org/posts/show/staged_shots_from_lebanon_please_coment
http://www.sportsshooter.com/message_display.html?tid=21302

Newsagencies Stand by Lebanese Photos for counter point of view:
http://www.forbes.com/home/feeds/ap/2006/08/01/ap2920008.html

Pew Report:
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?ReportID=282

Pew Chapter on Creditbility:
http://people-press.org/reports/display.php3?PageID=1069

State of the News Media report from:
http://stateofthemedia.org/2006/

Chapter on attitudes to media:
http://www.stateofthemedia.org/2006/narrative_overview_publicattitudes.asp?cat=8&media=1

Adnan Hajj now has his own Wikipedia entry:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adnan_Hajj

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