A Reader Asks

Speaking of doctored up photos I notice that is one story you've let slide under your radar. Hmmm?

I never found the story interesting enough to read, and I do have a job, a life, and other interests, but - since you asked, I did read up in this story in The Jerusalem Post - no Islamofacist outlet that.

My conclusion: A truly nothing story. Some guy put a little extra smoke in a scene of smoke rising from Beirut, multiplies the number of flares dropped by an Israeli Jet, and some woman is shown in two different pictures wailing about the ruins of her house. Oh yeah, and some injured guy gets up and later manages to walk away from the blasted remains of some building. The guy who altered the picture was stupid and got fired for it.

There are plenty of real pictures of ruined buildings, dead children, and blasted bridges, so what difference does this guy's misbehavior make. It sold him a few more picture initially, then got him fired, but it doesn't change our picture of the war in the slightest. A war, let me remind you, where the Israeli Defense minister instructed his subordinates to "turn South Lebanon into dust."

As for the story, what should be a trivial story of one photographer's bad behavior and punishment was blown up by the right wing noise machine into a cause celebre. In reality, it is irrelevant to the war, and useful only for obscuring the facts.

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