Carnal Reason

The best single piece I have read on Reuter’s use of fauxtography comes via the great Zombietime, who documents four types of fraudulent practice, and discusses four theories about the fraud’s genesis. It is the theories that interest me.

Theory A: The Reuters editorial staff is sympathetic to the aims of Hezbollah, and is using propagandistic images exaggerating Israeli violence to increase world pressure on Israel to stop its attacks, thereby giving Hezbollah a chance to regroup, and claim moral superiority.

Theory B: The stringers employed by Reuters are sympathetic to Hezbollah, and successfully duped the Reuters editors into publishing propaganda.

Theory C: The stringers employed by Reuters simply wanted to make a name for themselves, and resorted to fraud to obtain the most spectacular images, regardless of their political outlook.

Theory D: Reuters photographers and editors are intimidated by Hezbollah, and publish Hezbollah’s propaganda out of fear for their lives.

Zombietime dismisses B and C as requiring incompetence so monumental as to be implausible. in any case, mistakes due to incompetence should not exhibit systematic bias.

Theory D strikes me as false, but it is fascinating because of its rich contempt for journalists, who are portrayed as both cowards and hypocrites. Were Hezbollah intimidating journalists, that fact would be enormously newsworthy. Journalists who covered up such intimidation would be abandoning all allegiance to truth.

Physical cowardice could explain the actions of a coward, but I doubt many cowards are drawn to reporting from war zones. A better case can be made for the sort of naked cynicism CNN pioneered when it wore Saddam’s muzzle in exchange for access to Iraq. I propose

Theory E: Reuters photographers and editors publish Hezbollah’s propaganda to insure continued access to still more Hezbollah propaganda.

I think theory A is true as far as it goes, but it is too narrowly conceived. Journalists have spinning the news in service to murderers for decades. Stalin and Mao were lionized by the press. Castro still is. Any tyrant, any thug, is good enough to lie for so long as he opposes the United States.

Posted on August 9th, 2006 by pwyll
Filed under: politics