[N8 v2.0]

Daily Mirror photos officially fake
The Evening Standard | 13 May 2004 | By Joe Murphy, Evening Standard Political Editor

The photographs purporting to show British soldiers urinating on an Iraqi prisoner are fakes, an inquiry has decided.

Defence minister Adam Ingram was set to reveal that the images showing a hooded "victim" were actually taken in northern England.

Army investigators are understood to have identified the four-tonne Bedford lorry in which the pictures were taken and tracked it down to a barracks in Preston, rather than Basra.

The pictures - apparently showing a man being beaten, kicked and hit with a rifle butt - caused worldwide outrage after they were published in the antiwar Daily Mirror.

 

[LordOpie]

at some point in time, someone knew they were fake... and that person(s) needs jail time.

 

[Slugman]

gotta keep circulation up to make a profit... F' the facts, lets make $$$$$

 

[N8 v2.0]

Originally posted by Slugman
gotta keep circulation up to make a profit... F' the facts, lets make $$$$$

Especially if it is in keeping with the bias of the media.

 

[$tinkle]

Originally posted by LordOpie
at some point in time, someone knew they were fake... and that person(s) needs jail time.

i recommend abu-graib.

 

[Slugman]

Originally posted by N8
Especially if it is in keeping with the bias of the media.

Is that the Leftist media attacking Bush or the rightist media that blocks and denies anything bad?

 

[Westy]

Originally posted by Slugman
Is that the Leftist media attacking Bush or the rightist media that blocks and denies anything bad?

No such thing as the rightist media. Just the commie pinko left that is trying to bring on the new world order and the media that just refers to the truth. The pen is mightier than the sword and it seems that the liberal scumbags have dropped their swords of the cold war and have changed their tactics to attack freedom through the popular media. It has become a subversive cancer that is eating away at the real America. Now you will have to excuse me, the black helicopters are coming and I need to find my aluminium hat.

 

[$tinkle]

Originally posted by Slugman
Is that the Leftist media attacking Bush or the rightist media that blocks and denies anything bad?

the funny thing is, people have forgotten who Eason Jordan was, and why CNN was protected when they didn't disclose atrocities. Their argument then was "to protect lives", but could that not be the same argument here [in not disclosing images within abu-ghraib]?

certainly, CNN was in an indefensible position of being biased then, and little else has changed since.

 

[N8 v2.0]

WHY THE BIG MEDIA CONTINUE TO LOSE THEIR AUDIENCE: Neal Boortz observes:
Instapundit | 05/13/04 | Glenn Reynolds

This morning in most of the newspapers I scanned during my preparation for the show the top story was still the Iraqi prison abuse scandal. Nick Berg had already disappeared from many front pages, but the prison abuse stories remain. May I suggest to you that there is a reason for this? Maybe it's just this simple: The prison abuse scandal can damage Bush, the Nick Berg story can only help him. Given the choice many editors will chose the stories that serve their cause, getting Bush out of the White House, rather than one that hurts it.

Such cynicism about the media, these days. But he's right. The Berg video wasn't shown on TV, and -- as Boortz notes -- the big media leaders seem almost desperate to keep the story on Abu Ghraib, even to the point of running already discredited fake porn photos purporting to be from Iraq. (And issuing lame and incomplete pseudo-apologies when caught out.)

But on the Internet, where users set the agenda, not Big Media editors and producers, it's different. As Jeff Quinton notes, Nick Berg is the story that people care about:

Right now the 10 phrases most searched for are:
nick berg video
nick berg
berg beheading
beheading video
nick berg beheading video
nick berg beheading
berg video
berg beheading video
"nick berg"
video nick berg


Likewise, Rod Dreher of the Dallas Morning News reports that that's what his readers care about:


Our letters page today is filled with nothing but Berg-related letters, most of them demanding that the DMN show more photos of the Berg execution. Not one of the 87 letters we received on the topic yesterday called for these images not to be printed. My sense is that there's a big backlash building against the media for flogging the Abu Ghraib photos, but being so delicate with the Berg images. People sense that there's an agenda afoot here. As somebody, can't remember who, wrote yesterday, "Why is it that the media can show over and over again pictures that could make Arabs hate Americans, but refuse to show pictures that could make Americans hate Arabs?"


These guys are marginalizing themselves with their agenda-driven coverage. And they're so out of touch they don't realize it. As Andrew Sullivan notes:


My gut tells me that the Nick Berg video has had much more psychic impact in this country than the Abu Ghraib horrors. I even notice some small evidence for this. Every political blog site has just seen an exponential jump in traffic - far more than anything that occurred during the Abu Ghraib unfolding. My traffic went through the roof yesterday, and, according to Alexa, so did everyone else's. People who have tuned the war out suddenly tuned the war in. They get it. Will the mainstream media?


My prediction: Nope, and they'll continue to lose audience to the Internet.


UPDATE: It's not just Jeff Quinton. Here's what Lycos reports as its top requests:


Nick Berg is the new number one search term on the Lycos Search engine over the past 24 hours. The top 10 search requests Web users are specifically searching for regarding Nick Berg are:


1. Nick Berg video
2. Nick Berg Beheading
3. Nick Berg and Iraq
4. Nick Berg Execution
5. Nick Berg Beheading Video
6. Nick Berg Killing
7. Nick Berg murder
8. Nick Berg assassination
9. Nick Berg decapitation video
10. Execution of Nick Berg.


The video showing the beheading of U.S. captive Nick Berg, combined with the multitude of search activity for the War in Iraq and searches for the Iraqi prisoners of war, is generating 12 times more searches than the #2 search term, Paris Hilton.


I don't think Google releases this sort of information. Am I wrong?


ANOTHER UPDATE: Steve Verdon has more, and Ann Haight notes that she spotted the fake porn photos as fakes on May 2d.


Meanwhile, Rod Dreher emails to make clear that the Dallas Morning News did run the Berg picture. (I knew that, and I didn't mean the DMN when I said "these guys," though I can see how that could have been confusing. Sorry!) And he adds:


I pointed out to Keven Ann Willey, the DMN's editorial page
editor, that I initially got the idea for this editorial from doing my usual bedtime run through the blogosphere, and seeing what a huge issue this Berg video vs. Abu Ghraib photos was becoming. We've been talking for some time about how editorial pages have got to make much more use of the blogosphere.

Kev gets it, she really gets it, and readers of our editorial pages will continue to see big strides in making ourselves more exciting and relevant to our readership. I'm the editor of Points, a new Sunday opinion and commentary section that we'll be launching in July. I'm going to run an old-media section that will be well-informed by the edgy debates and the lively style of the blogosphere.

I firmly believe that editorial pages have got to understand that by far the most interesting debates and commentary are occurring not on the nation's editorial pages, which are filled with material written by middle-aged, middle-class professionals who live in Washington, New York, Chicago and L.A., but on blogs, with their spectacular diversity and intelligence. We've got to figure out a way to tap into that in a serious and sustained way.

So some Big Media folks get it. And, finally, Google does track search requests, but only once a week and the last one, on May 10, missed the Berg story.

Nick Berg's topping the Yahoo! search charts, too.

 

[MMike]

They never landed on the moon either. The liberal media faked it on a Hollywood sound stage.

 

[N8 v2.0]

Originally posted by MMike
They never landed on the moon either. The liberal media faked it on a Hollywood sound stage.*

*Canadian education system version

 

[Westy]

Originally posted by MMike
They never landed on the moon either. The liberal media faked it on a Hollywood sound stage.

Nothing but a ploy to get Kennedy re-elected from the grave.

 

[MMike]

Originally posted by N8
*Canadian education system version

Damn the liberal media for crippling the canadian education system! If only I could be wise like N8...but I can't....because of the damned liberal media!

On a related note, my clutch seems to be making a squeaking noise. DAMN YOU LIBERAL MEDIA!!!

 

[derekpearson]

Originally posted by N8
*Canadian education system version

ahaha ZING

 

[RhinofromWA]

Originally posted by MMike
Damn the liberal media for crippling the canadian education system! If only I could be wise like N8...but I can't....because of the damned liberal media!

On a related note, my clutch seems to be making a squeaking noise. DAMN YOU LIBERAL MEDIA!!!

Well if you would check your high speed muffler bearings once in awhile, that wouldn't happen.

 

[MMike]

Originally posted by RhinofromWA
Well if you would check your high speed muffler bearings once in awhile, that wouldn't happen.

The liberal media has sabotaged my overhead Neilson regulator AND my reciprocating embroglio.

 

[$tinkle]

Originally posted by MMike
The liberal media has sabotaged my overhead Neilson regulator AND my reciprocating embroglio.

is that the punching bag type thing at the back of your throat, or is that the valve that prevents milk from shooting out your eyes?

 

[Spud]

I’m sure this is just the fault of a few poorly trained individuals working the printing presses and is not an indication of a larger problem with the editorial staff or management.

 

[valve bouncer]

Originally posted by Spud
I’m sure this is just the fault of a few poorly trained individuals working the printing presses and is not an indication of a larger problem with the editorial staff or management.

I was in England as this story broke and was watching Piers Morgan on television defending the story. I also read an excellent article in The Independent that was more about Morgan the man but was prompted by this story. Interestingly he was a tabloid journalist at the Sun before being hired by Murdoch at the age of 28 to edit The News of the World and then taking over the reins at the Mirror two years later. Last year his stance on the war (the Mirror opposed it) was costing it readership so he softened his stance somewhat. There was no doubt that if the abuse story turned out to be false then Morgan would fall on his sword. However he's probably not going to suffer too much, a carrer in business beckons no doubt.
You can read a similar article to the one I read (the one I read is only available on subscription now) at the Independents website.
http://www.independent.co.uk/
Anyway, not the first time he's skated on thin ice and this time the ice broke and he is paying the price as he should. Maybe some others in influential positions should take note.