When Smiling for the Camera is Not Enough

In my very first blog post, I drew some comparisons of society and politics between Israel and the US which I thought were interesting and ironic.

The very first item on the list was:

The media is liberal and presents news in a way that is slanted against the leader of the country and it's policies.

While they were covering the DC rally against the US presence in Iraq, the MSM came up with the following photo of someone protesting the Abu Ghraib scandal (hat tip to LGF):

That's all fine and good, until of course you take a few steps back and then get the entire picture, courtesty of Getty Images:

Remind you of anything?

Maybe this:

Or this picture from the anti World Trade Organization protest in Cancun:

Honest Reporting points out the following guidelines the New York Times recommends for its journalists:

Photography and Images. Images in our pages that purport to depict reality must be genuine in every way. No people or objects may be added, rearranged, reversed, distorted or removed from a scene (except for the recognized practice of cropping to omit extraneous outer portions). Adjustments of color or gray scale should be limited to those minimally necessary for clear and accurate reproduction, analogous to the "burning" and "dodging" that formerly took place in darkroom processing of images. Pictures of news situations must not be posed. In the cases of collages, montages, portraits, fashion or home design illustrations, fanciful contrived situations and demonstrations of how a device is used, our intervention should be unmistakable to the reader, and unmistakably free of intent to deceive. Captions and credits should further acknowledge our intervention if the slightest doubt is possible. The design director, a masthead editor or the news desk should be consulted on doubtful cases or proposals for exceptions.[emphasis added]

Does anyone read this stuff?

Just as in Israel we see that terrorists have become "militants" while reporters are now experts on international law and the difference between occupied and disputed territory--now in the US we see comparisons between Iraq and Vietnam and "peace protests" in Washington that we are told should remind us times gone by.

Christopher Hitchens addresses the cynicism--and distortion--in such comparisons by the liberal press. He describes

"International ANSWER," the group run by the "Worker's World" party and fronted by Ramsey Clark, which openly supports Kim Jong-il, Fidel Castro, Slobodan Milosevic, and the "resistance" in Afghanistan and Iraq, with Clark himself finding extra time to volunteer as attorney for the génocidaires in Rwanda...the Worker's World Party—Ramsey Clark's core outfit—is the product of a split within the Trotskyist movement. These were the ones who felt that the Trotskyist majority, in 1956, was wrong to denounce the Russian invasion of Hungary. The WWP is the direct, lineal product of that depraved rump.... It is really a disgrace that the liberal press refers to such enemies of liberalism as "antiwar" when in reality they are straight-out pro-war, but on the other side.

Just like I wrote in my original post, it seems that the US is becoming more and more like Israel all the time.

Update: For a look at how the media itself is manipulated, by the Palestinian Arabas, take a look at Pallywood

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