It’s still number five on Technorati at 5:15PM PDT Tuesday, having been as high as one for a good deal of the last couple of days, but a search for the name “Adnan Hajj” still yields “no results” on the New York Times website. I guess the story of Reuters running phony war photographs is not news to the paper of record. But as Jean Renoir famously said, “Everybody has his reasons.” [I bet you were thinking of saying it's one branch of the Mafia covering for another.-ed. Moi?]
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The Times simply needs time to fact-check the story and receive confirmation from multiple, independent sources before running the article.
Slightly OT; but, see if you can catch the later broadcast of Paul Zahn. Interviewing Anderson Cooper (I just caught part of it) he seemed to reluctantly admit that the Hizzies were lining up ambulances and then telling them to take off with sirens blaring so pictures could be taken of them doing so. Cooper said the ambulances just aimlessly drove up and down the roads with sirens blaring for the sake of pictures.
I was shocked that he admitted it; although he seemed sick to do so
Possible explanations for the Times blackout of Mr. Hajj’s creative use of modern software:
1. Many au courant journalists are reluctant to criticize other “journalists” or cast doubt on other sources of photos and copy. (This writer has had some experience to support that, with a conservative magazine avoiding direct criticism of another media entity.)
2. That partisans providing news information are propagandizing for their cause, well, izzat news? Times staffers pump up their side’s balloons all the time and stick pins in the opposition’s, whether on the official editorial page or its Page One stand-in.
3. One has reason to conclude that nothing in the Times is fully true and much is fully false re: politics and controversial aspects of culture. If the Times reported the fauxtography–someone else’s brilliant word–it risks reporting something that is fully true. But the paper does not do that. As long as Uncle Pinchie, back from his New Paltz howl, rules, full truth ain’t gonna happen: logically impossible.
4. Did you check for Page A19, or some similar page, bottom of the page, for a two-sentence report, like: Reuters photographer Adnan Hajj risks career for peace. Experts say he may join Rigoberta Menchu as a Nobel Peace Prize winner.
It’s now on the site, with a snide lede about how Hajj was “charged, tried and convicted on the Internet”.
Funny how the Times manages to ignore in its lede that he is clearly guilty beyond a reasonable doubt and to a moral certainty. Or perhaps they live in a Rather universe?
Charles Johnson posted at LGF that he was interviewed yesterday by someone at the NYT. I can’t find it in today’s paper, but maybe, just maybe they’ll run something eventually. Or maybe it’ll just appear as a human interest story in the Sunday magazine……………..
The 12th paragraph of Katharine Q. Seelye’s story:
“It is not clear where the tipster first saw the photos, but they were available on the Internet. Mr. Johnson, who has a background in graphic design, said that as soon as he saw the pictures, he could tell they were fake. He posted the news on his Web site on Saturday at 3:41 p.m. California time (he is based in Los Angeles), which was early Sunday morning in Beirut.”
She didn’t write, “said to a New York Times reporter,” but if he had said something to anyone else, it’s likely she’d have included that. As Times reports go, this was straight. And the article makes clear that the accusation from Little Green Footballs was solid.
This leads to another implication: If MoDo (Maureen Dowd) is considered a journalist, then so is Charles Johnson. His opinions are more rational and have more factual support, and he’s plugging away daily–the “journal” part of journalist. A lot of people have to rethink their prejudices about bloggers. Some yowl at an imaginary moon, but others report news that the MSM often ignores or distorts.