Worst Reporting Ever

[Update: Even more Hezbollah media exploitation. And Matt has a photo where the North Koreans are caught in the act, too. Check out M.C. Escher up on the blue thing, welding away with his Inspector Gadget arms. On a completely unrelated note, but on the same blog, here’s a rather interesting theory, for all six of you who haven’t seen it yet. I must say the silence is probably the most compelling part of the case.]

I’ve had plenty of bad things to say about how the media tend to view North Korea as an exclusively diplomatic issue, ignoring the inhuman pathos and obsessive secrecy that cast doubt on the North Korean regime’s very suitability to the diplomatic process. Still, I challenge anyone to name a story that’s been covered as badly as the latest war between Israel and Hezbollah.

Reuters has taken the worst beating, probably because it has about the worst Middle East coverage of any major news source, in contrast to its relatively good Korea coverage, and because it was the first to be caught. This photo of a burning Koran by the same stringer also looks staged. Reuters is hardly alone in its sloppiness, however. This New York Times photo (more) was just as obviously staged as the Reuters photos were obviously altered. U.S. News let a photo of a burning trash pile to slip past the editors and land on its cover caption as a burning Israeli fighter, though none were reported lost that day. AFP can’t read a contrail, thus blaming the Israelis for the rockets aimed at its own soil. Then there’s this woman, whom one blogger called “the unluckiest multiple homeowner in Beirut.” And don’t forget the shifting death toll at Qana, tragic as any number of dead innocents always is.

Above all, we are denied the essential context of why there is a war at all: because Hezbollah is rocketing Israel, often from areas where they know civilians will be when the counter-battery fire comes in. If we’re not seeing gory photos of dead Israeli kids, that’s not just a function of the Israelis doing a better job of protecting them. It’s also a function of the apparent view of some that Israel (and to many, America) should be exempted from the universal right of self-defense under Article 51.

To simplify: there is no such thing as unilateral peace. Surrender to terrorists will never end a war. It will always intensify and expand it.

What really comes to mind in all this? How little I know about the backgrounds of the Iraqi stringers whose reports about Iraq are there every time you open your Yahoo account or a newspaper, although the byline may only say “AP,” “Reuters,” or “AFP.” Is it reasonable to want to know more about their backgrounds, where they are from, and who else they’ve worked for?

Viewing all of this in light of some substantial evidence of a crude but planned Hezb campaign to manipulate the media, you can only struggle to sort the gullible reporters from the downright malicious ones. I’ve been critical of some of the targets Israel has chosen, but not once have I seen Israel as the beneficiary of such credulous rebroadcasting of patently suspicious propaganda. I have never been less likely to believe news reports out-of-hand than here.

It would be too easy to make this about particular news services, because it can be tedious to keep track of who the individual reporters and photographers are. The fact is, however, when you read the news, you’re consuming an edited product of an individual biased reporter (we’re all biased). Sooner rather than later, some person with more time on his hands than me is going to create an online registry of reporters who have distinguished themselves for professionalism, fairness, and doggedness on one hand, and for malice, inaccuracy, recklessness, political or partisan associations, and gratuitous editorializing on the other. Smart news sources will link their bylines to the best of these.