ninme

JPost - Column One: Terrorist theater tricks

Sunday afternoon released hostages and Fox News journalists Steven Centanni and Olaf Wiig spoke before the cameras. The fact of their release and their statements were reported by more than 1,000 news organizations throughout the world.

At the press conference, Centanni and Wiig, who were forced by their Palestinian captors to convert to Islam, praised the Palestinians. Centanni said, “I just hope this never scares a single journalist away from coming to Gaza to cover this story because the Palestinian people are a very beautiful, kind-hearted and caring people that the world need[s] to know more about.” Wiig similarly praised the Palestinians.

While their remarks were covered extensively, no one seemed to think that the fact that their first post-release statements were made at a Palestinian Authority sponsored media extravaganza in Gaza was significant. No one noted that the men were flanked by Palestinian “security forces,” and stood next to Hamas terrorist leader and Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Ismail Haniyeh.

No mention was made of the fact that the two were initially kidnapped by just such PA “security officials,” or that Haniyeh is one of the leaders of one of the most fanatical jihadist organizations in the world, an organization that the majority of the “beautiful, kind-hearted and caring” Palestinians voted into office last January.

That is, no mention was made of the fact that until the two men left Gaza, they remained unfree. No one asked whether they had been given the option of not giving a press conference in Gaza. And now that they have spoken, there can be little doubt that a second press conference by the two men, in Israel or the US where no one will force them to convert to Judaism or Christianity or threaten to kill them, will draw far less media interest. After their press conference, the two men became yesterday’s news.

LGF - IAF Airstrike Hits Reuters Armored Car

LGF - Reuters Urges Investigation of Airstrike

LGF - Injured Reuters Associate Worked for Iran

LGF - Kofi Annan In His Element

LGF - Frum: Counterfeit News

LGF (this one for irony’s sake) - Studying Little Green Footballs

I quoted the first one, because it’s important, and I’ve been banging on about it for two days, but read the rest of them too, do.

I dunno, I see these all as linked. I also haven’t finished my coffee.

Power Line - Dueling Headlines

The Washington Times and the New York Times both reported today on a Pew survey that tried to gauge Americans’ attitudes toward religion and politics. The Washington Times’s headline:

“Few see Democrats as friendly to religion.”

The New York Times’s headline:

“In Poll, G.O.P. Slips as a Friend of Religion.”

LGF - Rewriting History at Editor & Publisher

Unbelievable. After the blogosphere picked up on his 2003 article revealing that he faked a news story while working at the Niagara Gazette, the editor of Editor and Publisher, Greg Mitchell (or someone covering for him), apparently went in and edited the 3-year old article to make him look less guilty: The More Things Change…

Here’s the original first paragraph, still retained in The Internet Wayback Machine. (Hat tip:

Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back when I worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette), our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally “turned off” the famous cataracts, diverting water so they could shore up the crumbling rock face. Were visitors disappointed to find a trickle rather than a roar? Or thrilled about witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime stunt?

And here’s the edited version: ‘E&P’ Editor Had a ‘Jayson Blair’ Moment?

Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back in 1967, when I was 19 and worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette) as a summer intern, our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally “turned off” the famous cataracts, diverting water so they could shore up the crumbling rock face. Were visitors disappointed to find a trickle rather than a roar? Or thrilled about witnessing this once-in-a-lifetime stunt?

This one sends the LGF Lameness Meter to eleven.

UPDATE at 8/26/06 8:58:11 am:

LGF reader Geepers discovers that this little editing job is even more lame than it appears—because Niagara Falls was turned off in 1969, not 1967: Corps turned Niagara Falls off, on again.

Tim Blair - BELIEF REVEALED

Graeme Blundell’s review of The Falling Man includes a curious claim:

In an extraordinary act of national media self-censorship, several days after the photograph appeared, it vanished. Papers across the US defended themselves against charges of invading a dying man’s privacy and turning tragedy into pornography. The photograph became impermissible. There was a deeply held belief the deaths of the jumpers weren’t proper, indeed that they were cowardly. The images that came to symbolise the day were of helmeted heroic rescuers working in the rubble and the jumpers disappeared to the shameful websites that traffic in autopsy photos and videotapes of executions.

Weren’t proper? Cowardly?

UPDATE. Evil Pundit notes: “I have never seen anyone, anywhere, suggesting that the jumpers were cowardly. Not even the lefties I read.” Same here.