Mickey Kaus;

Why have a debate? AP has already written its lede: It’s 3:15. The big South Carolina Democratic debate starts in 45 minutes. But you don’t have to actually watch it. AP’s Nedra Pickler has already filed her story, in the past tense.

These are the people who bring you the science behind global warming. Reporting from Fishing Lake;

“Standing in rubber boots in a flooded yard, with the lake behind her, she said that the waters will rise more once the lake’s surface ice, visible in the shot, melts over the coming weeks.”

LIke David Akin, who a few weeks ago soberly informed CTV viewers that “even if C02 levels were reduced to zero”, anthropologic global warming would continue.
In fact, according to Al Gore, flooding in Saskatchewan during April runoff is a sign of global warming. Thanks, Al! Now, when they report hail in July, frost in September, and blizzards in February, we plebes will finally have the answer to an age old question – “why?”

(bumped with Update #2)
CBC;

We made a mistake.
The photo shows smoke billowing from stacks at the old Lakeview coal-fired generating plant in Mississauga, once said to be the world’s largest. The Ontario government called it a heavy polluter when it was shut down a couple of years ago not only because of the quantities of greenhouse gases it produced – difficult to photograph – but because of the noxious fumes and particulates that contributed to the murk obscuring downtown Toronto seen in the photo.
The stacks were demolished a few months ago but it remains a powerful image of the kind of emissions the Kyoto Accord wants to limit and that is why we used it in the April 19 story on John Baird’s concerns about the “risks” of meeting Kyoto.

(Did you catch the scare quotes on the word “risks”?)

It was the right photo, but not the right version.
CBC.ca uses images in number of ways: It is our policy not to alter those accompanying news stories and depicting actual events or people. Those used as graphics in promos or to illustrate feature stories, columns or the like may be changed in minor ways – slightly heightened contrast, different colour filter, slight cropping – to enhance their visual impact and appeal.
In this case, the original image was treated with a “warming filter,” which gave it the sepia tone, and cropped slightly to use as a graphic image. Fair enough, except it was – mistakenly – dropped in a file accessible for use with news stories and subsequently posted with the Baird story.
It was an inadvertent error, but I should also point out that the “dramatically different” versions the blogger found are, in fact, exactly the same photograph both showing exactly the same thing – emissions from an acknowledged heavy polluter. There was no “misrepresentation” and no attempt to mislead.

That’s the copy from the main page at Insidethecbc.com. Inexplicably, clicking on the permalink and comments brings up a blank page. (Note: This one works.)
Well, who to believe? The CBC or my own lyin’ eyes?
Of course they’re the “same photograph”. That was the rather the point – the question was why the photo was run through such a “warming filter” in the first place. I know what it took for me to run the original through the GIMP to approximate the change. This was (quite obviously) no mere bump in contrast.
And if the CBC felt that “warming” the photo was an acceptable alteration, then my question is this – was the blue-toned version that has appeared at least 3 times on their website just a different, enhanced version of the original?
Original post here.

Tod Maffin at Inside the CBC – “I know CBC.ca executives are discussing this particular issue today. I expect to hear from them soon about it.”

A fine rant by Charles Adler on NBC’s newest reality TV programming.
(Text version here).

Set aside for a moment the journalistic misrepresentation on display in using a photo depicting air pollution to illustrate a story on the costs of meeting Kyoto mandated C02 reductions…

There’s a little more than lack of scientific accuracy going on here. Reader “JRB” wrote, wondering if there was evidence of photoshopping.
My initial reaction was “no”. But then I noticed the file name (top-kyoto2.jpg) ends in the numeral “2”. Now, I know what it means when I add a “2” to a file name, so I removed it to see if anything came up.

How about that? It’s an uncropped version of the same photograph, the difference in overall hue impossible to miss. A little extra searching reveals that CBC used the blue-toned image in a similar formats here and here.

So, with two dramatically different versions before me, the evidence that one has been altered is clear. Therefore, I think it’s fair to ask – who at CBC news made the decision to “dirt enhance” the image that accompanies the item on John Baird’s report?
And why?
Update – CityNews has footage of the smokestacks being demolished in 2006.
An unenhanced photo of the same site in July of 2005 (taken by reader andycanuck).

Stephen Taylor – “Not only is the photoshopping unethical, it violates CBC’s own Journalistic Standards and Practices.”
If comments and loading are slow to respond, be patient. The server is under fairly heavy load at the moment, with incoming traffic from several top level American blogs. Thanks for the linkage, folks.
(In response to those commentors who argue that there is nothing at all unethical about photo manipulation of this type, let us resume the discussion on the day that a news outlet lightens a stock photo of Barack Obama to accompany quotes from African American political activists that he’s not “black enough”.)

Just when I thought that as bad as some of the media coverage of Virgina Tech has been, at least they haven’t been getting themselves worked up over some imaginary backlash against Asian students. Surely they know, that to the extent the public has a view on Asians at all it’s that they tend to take academic studies seriously and are less likely to be in prison. Mercifully, up to now they haven’t tried to make the story about how racist America is or subjected us to condescending lectures to not go on pogroms, as if that were a danger.
But now MSNBC decides it’s time to worry about the backlash. Sigh.

Damian Brooks takes the Toronto Star columnist to the woodshed in a lengthy post. A sample;

The difference between how Hillier characterized the past decade and how Travers represented Hillier’s remarks is that the CDS can back up his assertions with fact. Just because it’s a four letter word doesn’t mean Travers should avoid it.
Next unsupportable claim?

At Hillier’s urging, Ottawa shelved its Cold War weapons and thinking to begin creating armed forces capable of speedy domestic response and swift offshore intervention as well as the slow, problematic work of stabilizing failed and failing states.

I’d love to hear precisely which “Cold War weapons” the CF “shelved.” Because the only one I can think of is the Leopard C2 tank weapon system. And you can see just how solid a decision that was by Hillier’s obvious relief – and that of his troops – at being able to keep a tracked, heavily armoured, direct-fire platform in the Canadian inventory. Once the CF realized it could move tanks to missions around the world, our soldiers were no longer willing to part with them.

Unlike Travers, Brooks provides data, source links, and references.
Go read the whole, damning piece. Like me, you may find yourself wondering how one with so little factual discipline managed to get a job writing on military topics for a national newspaper…

In the wake of the Virginia Tech shootings, the media has questions. Really stupid questions.
They also have conclusions;

In the strongest editorialized image of the day, German cable news broadcaster NTV flashed an image of the former head of the National Rifle Association, the US gun lobby: In other words, blame rifle-wielding Charlton Heston for the 33 dead.

And, they have “experts”. This one predicts copycat killings – as though the Virginia Tech shooter came up with the plan all on his own.
On CBC’s The National last evening, we learned that school shootings were the result of – wait for it – the Iraq war. How many potential guests did CBC news sift through and reject in order to come up with one willing to conform to that ridiculous script? (If someone can isolate that special bit of insight for Youtube posterity, let me know … Update – No-Libs has it now.)
Another example of pervasive, uncorrected inaccuracy – “This is media malpractice and what many would consider willful deception.”
You can use this thread for other links or observations as to how media is covering this story.

The Globe has taken today’s tragedy to run a poll on stricter gun control. I don’t think they expected these results.

The British media’s hostility to Israel is well known, so this should be no surprise:

The National Union of Journalists has voted to boycott all Israeli goods for “aggression” in Palestinian territories.
After almost an hour of debate at today’s Annual Delegate’s Meeting in Birmingham, the conference voted 66 to 54 in favour of the ban.
The controversial clause was part of a motion proposed by James Gosling, of the Press and PR branch, and called for the union to “condemn the savage, pre-planned attack on Lebanon” last summer and the “slaughter of civilians in Gaza” over the last few years.
Paragraph four read: “That [this] ADM calls for a boycott of Israeli goods similar to those boycotts in the struggles against apartheid South Africa led by trade unions and the TUC to demand sanctions be imposed on Israel by the British government.”

It’s not surprising, but it is a sad spectacle. Surely journalists should know that Hizb’Allah initiated the attack on Israel last summer. But they aren’t interested in reporting the facts, evidently.
Update: In related news, Palestinian Jihad and the Tawheed Brigades announce that they have killed the BBC journalist Alan Johnston:

In the message, the group said the British and Palestinian governments were responsible for Johnston’s killing, and vowed to release a video of the execution.

Such charming people these journalists are trying to appease. I used to think the media would figure out how barbaric these Islamic terrorists are once they started killing journalists, but that just seems to make them try harder in their craven appeasement.

Guess not.

John Stossel on a long standing, growing problem in journalism;

Newsrooms are full of English majors who acknowledge that they are not good at math, but still rush to make confident pronouncements about a global-warming “crisis” and the coming of bird flu.
Bird flu was called the No. 1 threat to the world. But bird flu has killed no one in America, while regular flu — the boring kind — kills tens of thousands. New York City internist Marc Siegel says that after the media hype, his patients didn’t want to hear that.
“I say, ‘You need a flu shot.’ You know the regular flu is killing 36,000 per year. They say, ‘Don’t talk to me about regular flu. What about bird flu?'”
Here’s another example. What do you think is more dangerous, a house with a pool or a house with a gun? When, for “20/20,” I asked some kids, all said the house with the gun is more dangerous. I’m sure their parents would agree. Yet a child is 100 times more likely to die in a swimming pool than in a gun accident.
Parents don’t know that partly because the media hate guns and gun accidents make bigger headlines. Ask yourself which incident would be more likely to be covered on TV.

Now that our famous unstranded polar bears have been flogged to death…

Tim Blair has come up with this inspired project; “Attention, global media! Here’s another picture of animals and water for you to misrepresent“….

It’s a slow weekend. Grab your camera and see what threatened species you can capture in the general vicinity of water.

Help build the Melting Icecaps Doomsday Album!

It’s what they leave out;

The picture of the British soldiers liberated by Iran is everywhere.
But if you compare these two front pages, you will see what happens when design prevails over news.

Here’s a hint: read the headline. Then, count the people.

And here’s a question I don’t have the answer to – did this one make the front page of any Canadian newspapers?

Check out the full story.
Now that the details of their capture and detention is being told, the “crop to happy” editing by western media is just all the more detestable.

“We Deride”, updated…
Though Ware is not mentioned by name, this AFP report (Jennie Matthew) confirms the behavior reported by Drudge. And it’s a piece of work in itself. I’m reprinting it in its entirety, as something tells me it may be “cleaned up” now that Instapundit has drawn it to the attention of a few hundred thousand readers;

Republican presidential hopeful Senator John McCain (news, bio, voting record) boasted about shopping and chatting to Iraqis in a constantly bombed Baghdad market on Sunday, adamant that the US troop surge is paying off.
Making a lightning trip to Iraq, McCain and three fellow Republican congressmen told slightly incredulous journalists about their “deeply moving” downtown walkabout, sipping tea and chewing the fat with welcoming Iraqis.
“After landing at the airport we drove from the airport into various parts of the city. We stopped at Bab Sharqi market where we spent well over an hour shopping and talking with the local people,” said McCain.
“Things are better and there are encouraging signs. I have been here many times over the years. Never have I been able to drive from the airport. Never have I been able to go out into the city as I was today,” he boasted.
Hundreds of people have been killed in Iraq during the last week, including 60 slaughtered in a similar Baghdad market on Thursday evening, as car and suicide bombers have continued to defy the new Iraqi-US security crackdown.
A security official told AFP earlier on Sunday that the Iraqi death toll was up 15 percent last month. US commanders openly admit there is no military solution to the lethal sectarian warfare, insurgency and rampant kidnapping.
Yet Lindsey Graham (news, bio, voting record), who as a Senator enjoys a six-figure salary, boasted about spending five dollars in what is one of the most favoured bombing sites in Baghdad and infamous as a nest of criminals under Saddam Hussein.
“I brought five rugs for five bucks. People were engaging and just a few weeks ago, hundreds of people, dozens of people were killed in this same place,” said Graham.
On a trip blatantly directed at American voters, the senators were adamant that the new US crackdown was working and lashed out at Democrats for trying to force a US withdrawal and the media for not reporting the fuller picture.
“I’m not saying mission accomplished… it’s long and it’s hard. and it’s very, very difficult, very, very difficult task ahead of us,” said 70-year-old White House hopeful McCain, who was a prisoner in Hanoi during the Vietnam war.
Although the deployment of 80,000 Iraqi and US forces has seen a decline in sectarian execution-style killings, insurgents are increasingly taking their battle to other towns and cities.
“I studied warfare. I’m a student of history. If you control the capital city of a nation you have a significant advantage,” countered McCain as one reporter giggled at the back.
“The American people are not getting the full picture of what’s happening here. They’re not getting the full picture of the drop in murders,” he hammered, reeling off a list of positives he felt the press were ignoring.
“The most deeply moving thing for me was to mix and mingle unfettered among ordinary Iraqis and a seemingly endless street market. To stop, to have chai tea, to haggle over the price of a rug,” chimed in Representative Mike Pence (news, bio, voting record).
Yet journalists openly scoffed afterwards at what they considered a public awareness exercise secured on the streets by massive US security.
The congressmen admitted to “having protection”, driving in armoured Humvees and keeping their body armour on, although they were encouraged by accompanying US commander in Iraq General David Petraeus to remove their helmets.
McCain’s visit came a week after he told Bill Bennett’s Morning in America radio show that there were parts of Baghdad where they could take a walk, in comments derided by a CNN journalist based in Iraq as a “Neverland”.
The Democratic-led US Congress last week conditioned fresh funding for the war to withdrawing most US combat forces from Iraq by March 31, 2008.
“If you set a deadline now, it will undercut everything positive that’s going on,” said Graham. “The president will veto any bill with a deadline.”
McCain, who was last week placed well behind his main rival, former New York mayor Rudolph Giuliani, in the race for the 2008 Republican nomination, has long supported the war and argued that more soldiers were needed.

Unbelievable. (Emphasis mine.)

Stephen Taylor;

While hovering on the periphery of a budget-day scrum with Jack Layton, I was spotted by Elizabeth Thompson of the Montreal Gazette. She scolded me and expressed to this lowly blogger that he wasn’t allowed to scrum with Layton. Largely ignoring her, I continued to mind my own business and started to needlessly check my camera settings. Thompson alerted Parliamentary President Richard Brennan to my presence and minutes later, security asked me to leave the foyer area.
I left the hallway outside of the foyer and walked over to the railway room to interview some ‘stakeholders’ of the budget. This went off without incident and during that time, I cheerfully chatted with some reporters that were in the same room.
Having completed my interviews with the stakeholders, I left and headed on over to the Rotunda where I had a friendly chat with Jack Layton. Elizabeth May and her assistant were also hanging around chatting when I saw Gilles Duceppe of the Bloc walk by. Having heard that his party was the lone opposition party supporting the budget, I asked him for an interview. He agreed. After the interview something ugly happened.

He asks a good question. By what authority does a member of the press ask to have a member of the public removed from the Hill when he has been granted the right by the Speaker to be there?
Elizabeth Thompson responds to Stephen’s post in the comments.

“What happened budget day had nothing to do with whether or not you are a blogger – it had everything to do with the fact that you were violating the rules that go with the pass you were wearing around your neck. […] I can assure you that if I saw anyone without the right credentials doing something that violated the rules that go along with their pass I would also flag it – regardless of their political affiliation.”

Thanks for stopping by with your side of the story, Elizabeth – something tells me you were one popular girl in grade school.
Here’s an amusing Flashback;

“The journalists whom I saw there as members or guests of Civitas like Lorne Gunther, Andrew Coyne, William Johnson and L. Ian MacDonald quite obviously respected Civitas’s bylaws and to my knowledge have not written a word about it.
I am not a member of Civitas and am therefore not bound by the organization’s internal membership rules not to report what I hear. I did not enter the room and remained in the public foyer of the hotel, a foyer that members of the public have to cross through to get to other hotel services. Civitas President Lorne Gunther, with whom I have appeared several times on Newsworld, passed me about five times as I stood outside the room and never asked me to leave. I turned down invitations from members of Civitas to come on in and grab a seat.
If you want to keep people from hearing a meeting where a prominent Republican pollster using a microphone and rather loud speaker system briefs a large group with strong connections to the prime minister of this country and the government, (something many people would judge of public interest), I would suggest next time you simply close the door.
Elizabeth Thompson | 05.08.06 – 8:20 pm ”

…We Deride”;

During a live press conference in Bagdad, Senators McCain and Graham were heckled by CNN reporter Michael Ware. An official at the press conference called Ware’s conduct “outrageous,” saying, “here you have two United States Senators in Bagdad giving first-hand reports while Ware is laughing and mocking their comments. I’ve never witnessed such disrespect. This guy is an activist not a reporter.”
Senators McCain and Graham flew into Iraq and drove into Bagdad, making stops at an open market and a joint Iraq/American military security outpost before appearing at the press conference.
This is not the first time Michael Ware has taken issue with Senator McCain’s comments about early progress in Iraq. Last week, after Senator McCain told CNN’s Wolf Blitzer that he needed to catch up on the news coming out of Iraq, Michael Ware responded, saying:
“I don’t know what part of Neverland Senator McCain is talking about when he says we can go strolling in Baghdad.”
Michael Ware has also publicly expressed his views on the war last year in an interview with Bill Maher, saying, “I’ve been given a front-row ticket to watch this slow-motion train wreck … I try to stay as drunk for as long as possible while I’m here … In fact, I’m drinking now.”

This is the level of professionalism behind today’s “news” reporting. Keep that in the back of your mind the next time you turn your set to CNN. Or don’t.
SDA Flashback: Here’s another.
This email (CNN Pressroom) is probably more direct than the online feedback interface, should you feel like doing a little heckling of your own.
MONDAY UPDATE – Ware denies incident as reported, Video and commentary at Hot Air.
Related – a drive by smear by someone at Associated Press, who decided to tack on a little extra information about Newt Gingrich’s marital history to fill out a story on “bilingual education” – an hour after the original version appeared.
The practice of ending news reports with negative, unrelated “reminder reporting” is a fairly common with a number of news organizations. I don’t have to tell you who the favourite targets are. Keep an eye out for it – you’ll be surprised at how often they show up.
TUESDAY UPDATE – Though Ware is not mentioned by name, this Associated Press report confirms the behavior reported by Drudge.

They’re on the other side…

Via James Taranto;

“Even we wouldn’t go so far as to equate Ned Lamont with America’s enemies, but it’s telling that the AP is doing so.”

More on the pork laden bill at Victory Caucus;

So it turns out that according to the Democratic leadership, funding for the Tree Assistance Program, sugar beets , and the Ewe Lamb Replacement and Retention Program are all “emergencies”. But there’s nothing urgent at all about actually getting funds to our soldiers on the battlefield.

A few evenings ago I happened to catch the CTV coverage of the Conrad Black trial jury selection. Lisa LaFlamme pondered out loud whether a jury of common Chicago folk was equipped to understand the legal and financial complexities that underpin the case.
I looked back at the screen.
“As if you do.”

Well, the street is abuzz with this news.
Or, maybe not.
I’m an agnostic on Black. However, I do wonder how much interest there would be in his legal problems if he were a Canadian born United Nations Special Advisor* on North Korea, instead of “media mogul”.
At the very least, I do think there are editors who would do well to check whether their TV cameras are capturing real news, or just another reflection in the Canadian media fish bowl.
Update – I guess this was inevitable – the Conrad Black Trial blog.