Canada Free Press message to Hezbollah:
"Oh, my God! They've killed Mickey! Those bastards!"
By Judi McLeod
Monday, august 14, 2006
Not since a bunch of guys in their pyjamas proved that talking heads don't always tell the truth has the mainstream media really ever regained its credibility, according to some.
Dignity cannot be pulled off and on like a Brooks Brother's suit.
Who ever thought back when George W. Bush and John Kerry were duking it out that Dan Rather's jourmalistic indescretion would one day be eclipsed by `The Era of the Fauxtograph" ? Fauxtograph is a word that may have been around for awhile, but to me it was coined by The Good Guys. For it was The Good Guys who posted the following comment about photo fraud in Lebanon on www.slubblog.com: "a bunch of guys blogging in their pyjamas are more thorough than the editors who are paid to catch this stuff. It'd be laughable if so much weren't at stake."
Bloggers are gaining ground on what radio giant Rush Limbaugh calls the "drive by media", and the Internet is pretty potent if it can drag teenagers away from the boob tube as the latest polls indicate.
In an increasing work-from-home society, there are as many pinstriped pj's as there are suits. The pinstripes at newspapers like the New York Times, pontifcate from air-conditioned offices in Manhattan, by and large. Bloggers hunt down facts from basement apartments, by and large.
One of the vexing problems for the mainstream media is that little people are better are recognizing the truth than say, a Dan Rather.
They're the ones grounded in reality. The ones who know the landlord will be aroumd to collect this month's rent whether or not they got laid off from Wal-Mart last month.
Pay day doesn't arrive for them unless they work.
It's harder to pull a fast one on your average working stiff. They've been there, baby.
Mainline media types think they can confuse you with 25-cent words; the little guy speaks plain, and always wants you to "bottom line it" or "get to your point".
When the talkling heads get to them on the evening news, they log on to the Drudge Report to find out what's really going down.
So it shouldn't come as much as a surprise that the latte-drinking toffs in the mainstream media missed it when some of their photographers began turning in doctored up photographs as the news of the day.
But savvy bloggers www.littlegreenfootballs.com, www.aish.com and www.slubblog.com were quick to pick up on the Debut of the Fauxtograph.
There are likely no secretaries rushing coffee and copy to proof at the lonely working space of your average blogger. Nor do bloggers check out from the office to to head off for the nearest cockstail bar come 5 p.m.
Think of it this way: The news types at Reuters and aP talk tough. The bloggers are tough. They've got to be.
Many people were outraged when they saw that they'd been had by certain photos coming from professional media in Lebanon.
a wailing woman crying over the loss of her house–in two separate locations. a man holding up the body of a dead child–the same man who's posed for the same type of photos in another place, another time.
But perhaps the photos that most drove home the point of the hypocrisy of the fauxtograph is what some blogger call, "Toy Story meets Hezbollah".
Pictures depicting the innocence of universal childhood symbols, teddybears and dolls in the missile-destroyed rubble.
While there never could be anything laughable about the loss of innocenct lives in either Lebanon or Israel, there is something laughable about the tactics of news photographers on the payroll of propaganda.
Wouldn't you think they at least would have changed their names? The photo credit of a picture of that childhood icon, Mickey Mouse, sounds Muslim.
It's outrageous to think of media doctored pictures, run for efffect.
But the outrage of honest people to media fraud doesn't get too far. It withers to sheer frustration when other mainstream media outlets ignore the story, or bury it behind all those ads on Page 288.
Someone told me a long time ago, tell someone off and it's human nature to forget it over the next day or two. Lambast someone with humour and it can last forever.
Richard, who posted a message to www.slublog.com on august 8, definitely has the right idea.
Having seen the photo of Mickey by Reuter's Sharif Karim, Richard wrote: "Oh, my God! They've killed Mickey! Those bastards!"
I liked the idea so much, I sent off to Café Press and immortalized Richard's words in a fridge magnate that readers can see here:
I couldn't help but wonder are people now singing Disney's signature…M-i-c-k-e-y Mouse song every time Karim comes into sight.
Mickey Mouse has been number one with the children of the world ever since a guy called Walt Disney gave him life on the sketch pad.
Surely Reuter and aP photographers, who wanted to push the envelope for Hezbollah terrorists, could have been more sophisticated than to leave Mickey Mouse dolls, facedown and faceup im the rubble of Beirut. They've been to "J School", afterall.
Unfortunately, the creators of Fauxtographs have proven to the world that they belong to the same place that Mickey does: in the nursery.
Canada Free Press founding editor Most recent by Judi McLeod is an award-winning journalist with 30 years experience in the print media. Her work has appeared on Newsmax.com, Drudge Report, Foxnews.com, Glenn Beck. Judi can be reached at: judi@canadafreepress.com
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