Talk:Adnan Hajj photographs controversy

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Contents 1 Proposed move 2 A useful summary 3 Merge? 4 F-16 Image 5 Nice flash movie 6 Other images 7 Blogs as sources 8 Subtantial rewrite 8.1 Watcher wanted 9 Merge with 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict photographs controversies 10 Was anyone actually fooled by the manipulated photos?

[edit] Proposed move

Could we move the page to Adnan Hajj photographs controversy? This article so far is on the controversy, not the actual photographs. Republitarian 00:56, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

That seems reasonable. Stephen Aquila 01:20, 9 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] A useful summary

The best overview of this controversy I've found is http://www.zombietime.com/reuters_photo_fraud/. It's a blog post, however, so it is not directly useable as a secondary source. Cheers, CWC(talk) 01:20, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge?

Seeing how most of his article just deals with this controversy, can we merge this into Adnan Hajj? --DDG 15:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

Arguably a good idea, but that assumes Adnan Hajj won't do anything else interesting in the future. I think this controversy stands on its own as a Wikipedia article. Also, his article is pretty slim on the bio side. Perhaps instead of merging the two, we should focus on developing his independently. Stephen Aquila

[edit] F-16 Image

Can we find the original F-16 image? The one being used is actually the photoshopped version showing 3 flares instead of 1. Perhaps a side by side similar to the smoke alteration?--Skwurlled 20:17, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

That would be cool, but I've not seen the original myself. Was it ever released? Stephen Aquila 00:30, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Nice flash movie

However, a bit biased, I'd concern. For your POV/NPOV considerations.

[edit] Other images

I agree with Mr. Arromdee's edit that the images of the woman are useful. If we are going to include allegations of Reuters bias (I believe we should, but there has been reasonable debate on that issue), potentially staged images should be at least as relevant as potentially-photoshopped ones. Stephen Aquila 04:12, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

This and this may be helpful. Also, lets try to merge withe the main Adnan Hajj article. Personally I think the minimal detail should go here due to this being the source of his notability, but either way we should reduce the number of [redundant] pages. Cheers, Tewfik^Talk 07:09, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Blogs as sources

This article makes a use of blogs as sources. Please read up on WP:RS where it says "Posts to bulletin boards, Usenet, and wikis, or messages left on blogs, should not be used as primary or secondary sources." and "self-published books, personal websites, and blogs are largely not acceptable as sources." // Liftarn

It would be rather silly to write an article about a scandal which was uncovered by blogs without linking to those blog posts. Blogs are acceptable primary sources for this purpose, as the Reliable Sources policy clearly states when not quoted so selectively. Cheers, CWC(talk) 17:57, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

As it says "Posts to bulletin boards, Usenet, and wikis, or messages left on blogs, should not be used as primary or secondary sources." and "Reports by anonymous individuals, or those without a track record of publication to judge their reliability, do not warrant citation at all, until such time as it is clear that the report has gained cachet, in which case it can be noted as a POV.". Yes, blogs may be used as sources, but "Material from self-published sources, whether published online or as a book or pamphlet, may be used as sources of information about themselves in articles about themselves" (emphasis added). If it is newsworthy you should be able to find a reliable source saying the same thing. // Liftarn

In this situation, Chris has it right... the blogs are being used as PRIMARY sources for what the blogs themselves say, and not as secondary sources used to support statements of fact. As such, they can be used. Blueboar 20:48, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

Only after he rewrote it entierly so at least something good came out of this. // Liftarn

I have several points to make:

• Note well: "messages left on blogs" means 'comments' written by readers (and spambots!), not 'posts' written by the bloggers themselves. There are many situations where linking to blog posts is appropriate, but linking to blog comments is ...shudder... very rarely acceptable.
• Note also that WP:Reliable Sources is a guideline, not a rigid policy.
• Since much of this article is "about [certain blogs] themselves", WP:Reliable Sources explicitly allows to link to the relevant posts. In fact, WP:Verifiability but pretty much requires us to do so!
• In the version that Liftarn reverted, I tried to use blogs as sources only for statements about the blogs themselves. Pointing out any where I might have failed would have been a lot less disruptive than blindly reverting several hours of hard work along with some important new links.
• In any event, I have now done a further, smaller rewrite which (I think) ensures that every statements for which we cite a blog post is about that blog post. As always, further edits are welcome. (But please avoid massive reverts for a while, heh? Just sayin').
• In the edit summaries, Liftarn claims I made a personal attack (on him); I don't believe I did. See User talk:Chris Chittleborough#Alleged_Personal_Attack.
• Liftarn has written lots of stuff about this article and about me today. It's a pity he never bothered to address the very first point I made in this section:

It would be rather silly to write an article about a scandal which was uncovered by blogs without linking to those blog posts.

• I am glad that Liftarn thinks that "something good" happened here today. Please note that my big rewrite was not prompted by anything he did, was not helped in any way by anything he did and was in fact made harder by something[1] he did. Having spent several hours doing that rewrite, I have now spent several more hours dealing with Liftarn's reversions of that edit, reversions on this page, false allegations, misstatements about WP:RS, etc, etc. If he is claiming any credit for recent improvements to this article, he is quite wrong. I have asked him to clarify his strange and infuriating remark.

Cheers, CWC(talk) 21:54, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I firmly beleive that if I hadnät pinted out then the statements on blogs would have been taken as reliable sources. Now at least the article says that it is not fact, but something the blog says. // Liftarn

Liftarn, where did you get the strange idea that everyone else but you violates our Reliable Sources policy as a matter of routine? Your firm belief is quite wrong and completely unjustified. Please be less condescending in future. CWC(talk) 16:15, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

I don't have that idea, but I know there are many POV-pushers around and many of them do violate the Reliable Sources policy as a matter of routine. How else would you explain that so much unsourced statements could be included in the article without anybody noticing? Or even worse, revert changes asking for reliable sources. // Liftarn

[edit] Subtantial rewrite

I've just spent several hours reorganising, rewording and adding links to the article. I tried to retain all the previous content; I hope I succeeded. Corrections, improvements and comments are all welcome.

One thing that should be fixed is that we're using two different styles for references:

• a lightweight format ("[url title] website, date") CWC(talk) 18:01, 10 September 2006 (UTC)
• the more complex {{cite web ...}} format

I find the "cite web" template quite inappropriate for posts by bloggers who follow the rules about clearly indicating updates. What do other editors think? Cheers, CWC(talk) 18:01, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Watcher wanted

The article currently has only one "citation needed" marker, on the assertion that:

... shortly after this, the altered image appeared on the 7 August 2006 edition of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer

(referring to the cloned smoke picture). Could someone with some spare time and a good internet connection watch the first three segments of The News Hour with Jim Lehrer for Monday, August 7, 2006 (available here) and edit the article accordingly? Thanks, CWC(talk) 18:01, 10 September 2006 (UTC)

I was the one who added the assertion, and I kept it in after watching the Internet feed and noting that the altered image was not there. I did this because segments from the show are typically missing due to copyright reasons. If someone has access to the actual show — someone who taped it or who works at PBS, for example — it would be good to double-check. Otherwise, I suppose the statement should be removed as per WP:Verifiability. (By the way, I agree with many of your points above; see Talk:Adnan_Hajj#Blogs_as_sources for similar comments I made a couple of hours prior to yours.) Calbaer 18:33, 12 September 2006 (UTC)

No one has come forward yet, so I've cut that sentence and pasted it here:

However, shortly after this, the altered image appeared on the August 7, 2006 edition of The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer.

If someone produces a cite, we'll put it back, but it seems unlikely at this stage. Cheers, CWC(talk) 14:25, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Merge with 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict photographs controversies

I propose to merge this article into 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict photographs controversies to avoid excessive fragmentation. Kosmopolis 12:14, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

I think they are two distinct things and that that's excessive merging (since Adnan Hajj was already merged with this). I think that we run the danger of over-merging: This might eventually be merged with Pallywood and/or Media coverage of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, diluting the article and making it seem either more biased or less controversial, depending on how the merge takes place. Of course, future merges would have to be dealt with separately, but my point is that the Adnan Hajj photographs controversy is more focused and less open to interpretation than 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict photographs controversies. Calbaer 20:42, 20 September 2006 (UTC)

While I think there are too many subpages related to the 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict at this point, this page should remain as a separate documentation for the time being. Tewfik^Talk 04:52, 26 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Was anyone actually fooled by the manipulated photos?

You would have thought if someone was going to digitally alter their photos (for whatever reason) they would at least make it look semi-realistic. Did anyone (including Reuter's editors) actually believe that the photos were real? With the one of smoke above Beirut in particular it is just so immediately obvious that it has been edited its silly and the F-16 is obviously firing flares not missiles, regardless of how many it actually fired; anyone with any aircraft knowledge could tell you missiles don't look like that. Oh well, gave me a good laugh. Canderra 16:43, 22 March 2007 (UTC)