Snapped Shot

Shane Richmond, an editor at the Telegraph, has posted a half-hearted analysis of the recent Reuters scandal. Unfortunately, Shane leaves as many questions open as he does answers. For instance, he (and those who defend the media religiously) claims that questioning the media's use of imagery is pointless, as the core question is merely "Was a child killed in this bombing?"

Well, Shane, there is a slight problem with this approach: That a child is dead, is not in question. That's something that can fairly easily be deduced from photographic evidence, as it is.

The question now becomes, "How did this child die?"

If we're to believe the press, these children being paraded around in the news are dead as a result of Israeli brutality. Yet, as we've been repeatedly told by CNN, reporters are under the constant supervision of Hezbullah officials, and are threatened with death if they don't please their hosts.

With those conditions, how can we be expected to trust anything that comes from Lebanon? And why are the very same editors like you, Shane, who hold yourselves in such high esteem, so seemingly unwilling to fully disclose to your viewers and readers, that the sources for your stories are set on such unstable ground.

If you can come to expect such high journalistic standards from the Blogosphere, why do you not impose such standards on yourselves?

It's a question we'd all like to know.