A Tale of Two Pullings

A weekend without air conditioning in (gasp!) subtropical (pant!) Houston is tough on blogging, not to mention (#$&*!) everything else. (And if posting is irregular over the next couple of days, this will be why.) Nevertheless, I came by my office to check on one pulling only to learn of another....

Reuters Pulls Doctored Photos


Via Thrutch and Cox and Forkum: It seems that Reuters has had to admit to posting some obviously doctored photos of the smoking skyline of Beirut.

Reuters' head of PR Moira Whittle said in response: "Reuters has suspended a photographer until investigations are completed into changes made to a photograph showing smoke billowing from buildings following an air strike on Beirut. Reuters takes such matters extremely seriously as it is strictly against company editorial policy to alter pictures."

To see the photograph in question and the doctoring, follow the first link to LGF from Thrutch.

Two things are particularly disturbing about this blatant attempt at anti-Israeli propaganda on the part of a "journalist". First is, of course, that it happened, period. Second is the fact that such a picture could have (or be thought to have) anti-Israeli propaganda value at all.

Israel is a country that has been suffering pot-shots at its civilian neighborhoods from Lebanon for over two weeks! Frankly, if I were to see a photograph of Beirut completely leveled beneath a mushroom cloud, my reaction would be something more along the lines of, "It's about time!"

Just today, Hezbollah, which forms part of that nation's government, fired 400 rockets at Israel! As far as I'm concerned, Israel can do whatever it takes to make those rocket lauches come to an end, even if that means wiping all of Lebanon off the map.

If the destruction of a city in a nation waging an unprovoked war against a civilized nation cannot be accepted in the West as part of what that civilized nation can do for its self-defense, then the West will either permit itself to be destroyed by an inferior foe, or it will change its mind on this matter sooner or later.

Google Pulls Obsession

Last week, I posted a link to the Google Video version of the new documentary, Obsession: Radical Islam's War Against the West. Since then, Bruno (The Simplest Thing) wrote in to inform me that the Google Video version has been pulled.

The question is: Why?

On the one hand, it is quite possible that the movie was pulled for copyright infringement, in which case, Google did the right thing. Unfortunately, with Google's recent history of severing ties with news organizations critical of Islam, a second, very ugly possibility arises. Perhaps the documentarians made the Google Video available as a means of "getting the word out", only to have it pulled after some viewers complained that it was "offensive".

So far, a Friday email inquiry into the matter remains unanswered. I currently lean towards the "copyright infringement" interpretation. In addition to the fact that the Obsession web site offers the movie for sale (and could understandably not want an Internet freebie cutting into profits), Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali's film, Submission (HT: Amit Ghate), remains available on Google Video despite being critical of Islam. If I hear otherwise, I'll post an update....

-- CAV

Updates

8-7-06: (1) Commenter Bruno provides a link to a new Google Video version, but adds that the issue of copyright remains. (2) Bruno strikes again: "Now this is even weirder: the link to the old version, which vanished, was featured in th[is] following post from the official Google Video Blog.

Go figure!

8-11-06: It has disappeared yet again.

8-13-06: I have attempted three avenues of followup. In the first, an inquiry to the website of the movie, I never received a reply in over a week. Not a great way to deal with a potential customer, in my opinion.

In the second, an inquiry, to Google Video, I got a reply (to put it charitably) the next day. I quote it in full here, minus the header, the salutation, and the original message.

Thanks for your email. We understand you are concerned that a video is no longer available.

Please note that users may remove their videos at any time. Google Video also respects the rights and the tremendous efforts of intellectual property holders, publishers, and all other contributors to creative works. We work directly with content providers to ensure that Google Video is consistent with those principles. We apologize for any inconvenience and thank you for your understanding.

Sincerely,

The Google Video Team

Whatever that means.

Finally, I turned again to the blogopshere. This answer, in the comments to another blog, seems credible to me:

Obsession was placed on Google illegally, violating our copyright. To order personal copies, please visit our website at www.obsessionthemovie.com.

Sara Rivka
Obsession / Relentless

So there you have it.