The Mind Boggles

The mind frequently boggles at the mendacity of leftwing journalists. But Greg Mitchell, of Editor & Publisher, wins the blue ribbon first prize for the most insolently and shamelessly prevaricating column we’ve seen in a long time. Glenn Greenwald’s title, one is forced to observe, is in serious danger.

Mitchell has actually published an editorial in defense of the MSM and the Lebanon Fautographers. He calls the latter “brave.” (It is evidently dangerous to photograph people posing by burning garbage dumps or to use the Photoshop clone tool too much.) And he sneers at the bloggers who demonstrated many instances of fraud as “risk(ing) nothing but carpal tunnel syndrome.”

I was looking forward with interest to see if he had the unmitigated gall to try to defend any individual example of fauxtography. He wisely avoids trying in the case of Adnan Hajj; but, mirabile dictu! he does find cases he’s prepared to try to spin.

Here’s just one typical example of blog hysteria in their attacks on what some of them call “fauxtography.”

An image captured by one of The New York Times’ most acclaimed photographers, Tyler Hicks, that appeared in the paper and in a gallery at its Web site, showed a young man being pulled from the wreckage of a collapsed building after the Israeli attack on Qana that killed at least 28, including 16 or more children. Eagled-eyed bloggers soon found, on other news sites, images of the same man darting about the same disaster scene, trying to rescue people.

So, in their usual manner, they put 1 and 1 together and got 2 much: One blog after another charged that this man, after doing his rescue work, was planted on the pile, as a bomb victim, by Hezbollah, probably with the cooperation of Tyler Hicks, who then sent the manipulated photo around the world. The Times, as usual, was denounced by the rightwing bloggers for pro-terrorist and/or anti-American bias.

Even the popular, non-political site Gawker joined in, under the headline, “Times War Photos Artfully Staged, Directed.”

Well, there was, indeed, something wrong with the Times presentation. On the Web, though not in print, it suggested that the man had been blasted in the Israeli attack. In fact, the Times quickly found out — and corrected its Web caption — that the man fell down and got hurt in his rescue efforts. This simple explanation for the chronology was too much for some of the bloggers who continued questioning the incident, despite all the evidence to the contrary.

Others in the mainstream keep citing it too. As recently as this past Sunday, a Boston Herald editorial still had the man in the Hicks photo posing for the camera, then getting up and running around. It said the Times had “issued a correction” — without mentioning that it related to the caption about how he got hurt, not about it being a bogus photo.

But all of this was inevitable. Many bloggers appear ignorant of time-stamping and the fact that photos are often posted on Web sites out of sequence.

The Model: Gangsta Hat Guy

Pieta of Gangsta Hat Guy

Is that so? The poor chap fell down and injured himself in the course of his heroic rescue activities, knocking himself unconscious, but managing to land completely surrounded by debris, and miraculously –while falling– taking off his gangsta hat, and tucking it carefully under his arm!

Be sure to watch this video discussing the techniques of Pallywood agitprop.

Now whom do you find credible, dear readers? Greg Mitchell or Gateway Pundit who wrote the original exposé?

It should get funnier. Mitchell promises a follow-up Part II. I can’t wait.