Adnan Hajj: Sneaky Liar
08.07.06So a sneaky but not so slick reuters photographer named Adnan Hajj submitted this picture of some damaged buildings in Beruit. This picture showed up around the news and was instantly shot down by Charles at LGF. A obvious photoshop hack of the original photo. Reuters is simply amazing. Adnan Hajj distorted the truth and his “work” wasn’t even checked before being regurgitated out as dependable news.
Reuters did apologize and fire the sneaky bastard. This Adnan Hajj guy is also suspected for a bunch of staged photos back when Israel bombed Qana. But I think it goes to show even more that bloggers are here to put the MSM in check. And thats too bad this is what it has come to.
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# August 8th, 2006 at 8:17 amThat was the crappiest photoshop job I have ever seen.
# August 8th, 2006 at 3:36 pmJJ…your high school portrait was the crappiest photoshop job I ever seen. I know you don’t look a damn bit like Tom Cruise.
# August 9th, 2006 at 5:40 amUhm, worst Photoshop job ever—he should have been fired for just doing such a crappy job.
But his crap job didn’t distort the reality, which is that bombs hit the building, and smoke was billowing from the building.
What “truth” did the doctored picture depict that the original photo doesn’t?
# August 10th, 2006 at 2:46 pmWhat’s funny is that you will never see doctored photos of the warzone in Israel. In fact we hardly saw any of the destruction Jizz-bola did with their rockets across the border. Funny how that works.
# August 10th, 2006 at 3:22 pmMy point is it’s just the same as when Democrats were criticizing Republican Mike DeWine last month for using doctored images of the WTC in his campaign ad (the smoke was coming from the wrong tower).
It was foolish to do, but since the WTC actually was on fire, it doesn’t really matter—it was not depicting anything that didn’t actually happen. Same with this picture.
As far as why you don’t see pictures of the warzone in Israel that look like the ones from Lebanon, that’s because there is no “warzone” in Israel that looks anything like southern Lebanon—not even close.
Katyushas are small rockets, they basically just punch a hole in whatever they hit, they don’t level buildings and leave huge craters, they don’t knock down bridges.
The heaviest hit town in northern Israel, Kiryat Shmona, has been hit by more than 700 katyushas since July 12, and there has not been a single fatality in Kiryat Shmona.
You don’t see pictures of Israel that look like Lebanon because Israel simply does not look like Lebanon.
# August 10th, 2006 at 6:20 pmYou totally missed my point. I was using this doctored photo story as an example of a bigger issue regarding the media as a whole. I am illustrating the fact that the media are all warm and fuzzy toward these nation-states whom not only harbor terrorist organizations, but encourage and support them. There is little regard for Israel’s national security. There is little respect for Israel at all.
Try and refute this simple concept Guav and I will laugh.
Screw it… I am going to laugh regardless
# August 10th, 2006 at 9:02 pmI dunno Guav, 12 people were killed Sunday when a katyusha hit at Kibbutz Kfar Giladi, the local Kiryat Shomona Kibbutz.
There is certainly plenty of death and destruction in the north, it may not be on the level you and Hezbollah want to see but none-the-less it’s there.
As for Hajjs’ pictures; it’s just a obvious example of the pervading anti-Israeli media bias, the fact that a picture editor didn’t catch it is BS and goes to show that a great deal of media coming out of this War cannot be trusted and relied upon as impartial or even factual.
# August 10th, 2006 at 9:25 pmJJ, if that’s the point you’re trying to make, the fine, but I don’t see how this doctored photograph illustrates that supposed bias (furthermore, the idea that the U.S. media is anti-Israel is laughable in itself). Your “proof” that the media is slanted towards Lebanon is that they don’t show us pictures of israel that look like the ones from Lebanon. I guess reality has a “bias,” because the fact of the matter is that there are no pictures of Israel that look like this.
Show me some examples of this “warm and fuzzy” thing you’re talking about. Of course, I don’t see why we should have an inherent “respect” for any foreign nation.
Stevil, it should also be noted that the 12 people killed at Kfar Giladi, near Kiryat Shmona, were soldiers in trucks full of ammunition and equipment preparing to enter Lebanon. They were a military target, not civilians.
You guys can keep talking about how the doctored picture is an example of bias, but none of you are explaining how editing a photo—but not changing the reality it shows—is bias at all. He didn’t take a normal building and airbrush bombholes and create smoke billowing from it when none was there. His crappy editing didn’t alter the reality it depicted before the editing.
As a photographer, I frequently (almost always) adjust the contrast of almost every photo I use for anything—nobody uses a raw photo for professional use, the levels are never correct.
I’d say that the fact that the photo is so OBVIOUSLY altered is proof that the photo editor wasn’t paying attention, not that he was. You’re wondering how he could have not caught that mistake because it was so obvious, so he must have let it through on purpose. It’s much more plausible that he wasn’t paying attention and didn’t notice it, which is why he let it through.
Of course, the GOP’s recent airbrushing of a subtle Hitler mustache on Howard Dean (since pulled and replaced) is an example of a deliberate photo manipulation intended to alter reality. But this example of the smoke in Hajj and DeWine’s photos is not something that people should be upset about—those buildings were destroyed.
# August 11th, 2006 at 5:46 amGuav I don’t know where you get your info from but they were just mobilized reservists arriving in a bus (let’s not forget that a large percentage of Israeli civilians are civilian soldiers) not in a truck full of ammo and a Kibbutz is not specifically a military target. The katyusha is not a weapon that can be targeted/used in such a manner as you suggest, it is indiscriminate.
# August 11th, 2006 at 1:20 pmYou know I’m arguing minutiae BUT regardless of the why’s and wherefores you cannot deny loss and destruction on either side of the conflict, nor an apparent media bias against the Israeli position.
# August 11th, 2006 at 1:27 pmAnd to answer you charge of an example of bias, simple.
He was attempting to make the already terrible seem worse and regardless off your experience, as an Art Director myself who has worked for numerous National titles I’ve never met a Picture Editor worth their salt who wouldn’t have caught this, unless that is they had an editorial agenda it meshed with.
Don’t always assume something has to be so blatant as to have an affect.
# August 11th, 2006 at 1:36 pmwhat stevil said!
# August 11th, 2006 at 2:21 pm