Doug Ross @ Journal

I'm not dead yet, I'm feeling much better

In 2002, a much-publicized funeral in Jenin -- a Palestinian town -- featured the following bit of unintentional comedy. The video of the event, staged for the press to highlight civilian deaths ostensibly caused by Israeli aggression, included an odd incident (hat tip: Taranto):

...IDF field intelligence chief, Colonel Miri Eisen, told reporters that the film shows someone who is supposedly dead--and on the way to burial -- falling off his stretcher and then running away...

Fast-forward to 2006. Adnan Hajj, Reuters' infamous and discredited fraudtographer, was fortunate to have his work featured on the Saturday New York Times' front-page.

The Times could not spare any column-inches to clue readers in to the fact that Hajj had been utterly humiliated over the weekend. That is, until Tuesday the 8th, in an article entitled, "Bloggers drive inquiry into altered images."

In what may be the understatement of the year, the Times noted:

...many bloggers see an anti-Israel bias in Hajj's manipulations, which made the damage from Israeli strikes into Beirut appear worse than the original pictures had. One intensified and replicated plumes of smoke from smoldering debris. In another, he changed an image of an Israeli plane to make it look as if it had dropped three flares instead of one...

In keeping with their history of Pravda-esque censorship, the Times fails to note The Jawa Report's more relevant observation:

...Hajj is also an editor at as Safir... [which] is an openly anti-Israel Arabic news outlet in Lebanon...

More detail on Safir can be found here (warning: highly disturbing and graphic photos). Suffice it to say that Safir appears geared towards one goal: inciting hatred of Israel.

Thus, not only does Hajj make up the news, he also gets to edit it for a virulent propaganda rag!

And if you think Hajj has been busy, you haven't seen anything yet. Hajj repeatedly uses the same human props, including "the unluckiest home-owner in Beirut."

But Hajj isn't done yet! Adnan seems to have an alter-ego named Issam Kobeisi. The photos by Kobeisi and Hajj seem oddly familiar, almost... dare I say it... identical. In fact, it almost appears that Hajj has created an alternative identity to double-dip on his paychecks. A profitable venture to be sure, but not one that would endear him to his employers.

Of course, the Times doesn't mention any of this, but does include some choice quotes about how hard it is to police photographers in the digital age:

...Mick Cochran, the director of photography for USA Today, said the paper screens about 4,000 photos every day, looking for more than digital manipulation, especially in war zones where many American outlets hire local photographers because they can travel more easily than Americans...

I shudder to think what would have happened had Hajj actually been proficient at using Photoshop's stamping tool. The Times would still be featuring his egregious forgeries to drive their bizarre, Pravda-esque agenda.