Talk:Adnan Hajj photographs controversy/Archive 1

A couple issues

1. Can we get sources for the "a number of others show signs of having been staged" bit? I think it could probably stand to be reworded, too.
2. Should we talk about any similarities/connections to the Killian documents incident, or perhaps other instances where the truthfulness of news media has been called into question?

--Slowking Man 01:34, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

re. staged.

Don't know if it's worth a mention, but there's definitively speculation in that direction and when he already has been caught with a hoax once, perhaps it's mandated. Here's a few cites:

The passage from the Reuters cite:

“He was among several photographers from the main international news agencies whose images of a dead child being held up by a rescuer in the village of Qana, south Lebanon, after an Israeli air strike on July 30 have been challenged by blogs critical of the mainstream media's coverage of the Middle East conflict.”

And further:

“A number of web logs in the United States and Britain have claimed that a man who appeared in much of the international press's coverage of the Qana bombing lifting children's bodies may have been a Hizbullah agent who staged photo-ops for the international media.”

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3284546,00.html

http://www.riehlworldview.com/carnivorous_conservative/2006/08/still_more_reut.htm

etc. Rune X2 09:49, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Political motives?

If this reporter had political motives, and not just "story selling motives" behind this, I feel it should be categorized under Category:Political forgery. Even if this is hard to tell for sure (adding smoke and missiles can be both to make a military power look more powerful or to sell more impressive pictures), maybe there's another category for people involved in forgeries, because that, it certainly seem to be. -- Northgrove 22:24, 7 August 2006 (UTC)

Adnan Hajj photographs

I combined the content of this article and Reuters#Allegations_of_bias, putting the result in Adnan Hajj photographs. Hopefully this page can focus on the man, while the other page can focus on the scandal.

Merge?

Given that this article pretty much only talks about the controversy surrounding his doctored photographs, can we merge Adnan Hajj photographs controversy into this article? There seems to be a lot of duplication. --DDG 15:57, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I made the Adnan Hajj photographs article in order to combine the stuff on here with the stuff in the Reuters article and to nudge this page towards having more biographical information, similar to how Mary Mapes has more biographical information than Killian documents. However, no other biographical information has yet become known. Some suspect [1] [2] that photographs attributed to "Adnan Hajj" are not necessarily all taken by a man named "Adnan Hajj." (And, in fact, Reuters has admitted that there was some misattribution involved.) This might be a one-time mistake, Hajj might be one of many photographers, or "Hajj" might be a mere alias. (Both words are very common as Arab names, yet more distinctive to Western ears than something like "Mohammad Abdullah.") If this is the case, it certainly would affect how or if a merge is done.

Because of this, and since none of the other players in the scandal have yet become known, the two articles are currently very similar, and someone looking up one might not notice the other without using the links. However, I'd hold off on a merge until it's clear whether this scandal looks more like the Stephen Glass scandal (where the person and scandal pretty much remained equivalent) or more like the Killian documents scandal. Calbaer 17:54, 11 August 2006 (UTC)

I didn't know that about the suspected misattribution. Interesting. I wonder if we're dealing with photography sock puppets? Anyway, I agree with Calbaer about the current inadvisability of a merger. Stephen Aquila 00:36, 12 August 2006 (UTC)

Apparently someone recently created 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict photographs controversies, likely in response to the fact that Hajj seems not to have been the only deceptive photographer. Unfortunately, that means some people will come to Reuters (although the link there has discouraged that section from growing), some to Adnan Hajj, some to the new article, and some to Adnan Hajj photographs. There probably shouldn't be three articles with such large overlap, but, since this is a current event, I suppose for now it's best to just make sure they're sufficiently crosslinked.Calbaer 17:58, 13 August 2006 (UTC)

Oh, dear. That's a lot of articles. What do you say we remove the merge from AH and AHp and attempt to merge the AHp article into 2006 Israel-Lebanon conflict photographs controversies? Stephen Aquila 12:34, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I vote 'no' on the merge. While the article today still has too much biographical info on AH, I believe the Wikipedia article on Fauxtography shoul, and will, broaden over time to include much more about the fauxtography phenomena in general, the Lebanon/AH photos will be just one case, and will of course be an important historical footnote to the begining of the use of the term. Google hits on the word are now at 425,000, whereas they were just over 800 last week on 2006-08-09 at about 11 pm Central European time. The term is bigger than the incident. N2e 00:38, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

POV

Considering this biography of a living person deals in speculation and attacks him in every paragraph, does not mention any of his work aside from the two photographs and reuters work, it is fair to say it suffers from a POV bias, and so a tag of that nature has been added. --Irishpunktom\^talk 10:31, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Your liberal use of the -tag in a large number of absurd places as well as places which are already cited, is nothing but vandalism. Now it may very well be the article needs more citations, but use it in places where there's a real need, not just to throw dirt on an article you don't like. Rune X2 11:20, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

The citations provdied did support the assertation made, and in both instances required a translation tool. Thats why another source was requested, and required.--Irishpunktom\^talk 11:48, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

(I take it you left out a “no” in your reply.) I have left the two tags on the Arabic citations be, we'll have to wait for the creator of the cites to explain. The rest were either spurious or already cited. As were your pov tag. Pov tags applied without some sort of prior debate and consensus in the debating pages is merely a form of vandalizing. Many people have contributed in making this article, you alone do not get to designate it pov. Rune X2 12:03, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

I have explained above my reasons for adding the POV tag, you have failed to address any of the points and that is why it should stay. The citations should be removed when the claims are sourced. It should not be that difficult. --Irishpunktom\^talk 14:19, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Tom, cease your vandalism. The claims are cited. Nobody, including Adnan Hajj, dispute that he modified the images in question. Briangotts (Talk) (Contrib) 15:07, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Ok, firstly, this is a Biog of a living person, yet all thats in it is an attack piece regarding the images. Secondly, not all the claims are cited.

• Adnan Hajj is reportedly a Lebanese Islamist - Is this a self description or is this someones opinion of him? Its unsourced, despite the link to here.
• Reportedly a Jihad supporter - What report? Who made the report? Where is the report? Its unsourced despite the link to here
• he is known for a number of dramatic photographs - "a number"? What number? How many is it? I thought it was two, is it not?
• ...of the Arab-Israeli conflict" - The Arab-Israeli conflict? - The entire thing? Was he taking photogrpahs of the Jaffa riots? Obviously not. For what specific conflicts have his "dramatic photographs" been "known" about?
• Critics rejected his claim - what critics? When did they reject it? Where did they reject it?
• stating that Hajj's doctored photo added an entire plume of smoke, duplicated several buildings, and showed a repeating pattern indicating that at least eighteen separate copy/paste functions were used on one plume of smoke - The onlys crtics to make such claims are a Web-Blog. Have their claims been verified, or is it just the opinion of a partisan news blog?
• Other photographs by Hajj have been questioned by critics scrutinizing his images of a rescue worker.. - What other photographs? What critics? We have a link to one partisan blog, is that it?
• Is Hajj simply a photographer? - The answer is no.
• Does he do broadcast work, the anser is yes, so, why isn't this mentioned?
• Does he edit a widely circulated newspaper? - Yes, why isn't that mentioned?
• What else has he done, hasn't he done?

The article is highly partisan, as per the cites given, and needs to be marked as such. --Irishpunktom\^talk 15:54, 14 August 2006 (UTC)