Tuesday, November 14, 2006
Kudos to Bruno Stevens for showing how a photographer can correct the print media's possibly willful mistakes by speaking out and emptying the drawer of more pictures from different angles to show the truth of the thing. 
LGF has the scoop from this Lightstalkers thread: The Media Are the Enemy
Charles remarks:
You’re not going to believe this one.
All our suspicions about mainstream media slanting and distorting the news from the Middle East are confirmed in a bombshell of a post by Bruno Stevens, at the Lightstalkers pro photographers’ forum: The Lebanon ‘garbage dump’ story: complete explanation. (Hat tip: Snapped Shot.)
His photograph, published by both US News and World Report and Time Magazine, had a caption describing the scene as the wreckage of an Israeli jet shot down by Hizballah. In this post, Stevens reveals that the captions he sent in with his pictures described the scene accurately—but editors at the magazines changed the captions to completely alter the story...
Photographer Bruno Stevens:
...Now, once and for all, this place is NOT a garbage dump. It is the back entry and parking lot of large Lebanese Army barracks in Kfar Chima, in the eastern outskirts of Beirut. A series of yellow barracks building can be seen behind the Hezbollah fighter on the picture published by TIME; below is another picture from the scene that clearly shows de-commissioned Lebanese Army trucks as well as a mirador from the base northern gate...
...
This is a very important piece of evidence showing probable collusion between Hezbollah and the Lebanese Army, there is little doubt that the Lebanese Army was aware of the presence of at least one missile launcher and at least one large missile on their parking lot. The size of the launcher, destroyed a couple of days later from the ground by an unknown party suggest missiles 10 to 14 meters long.
There were 6 to 8 large articulated trucks parked there, making it a very legitimate target for the Israeli Air Force, quite far away from civilian houses...
Check out both threads.
Read the comments at Lightstalkers where Stevens does not appear to be so squeaky clean when it comes to the facts:
comment by Rudi Roth:
"Bruno is however one of the very few people in the whole world who can pretend having seen the 14 minutes of the death of Mohamed Al Dura, as het stated in that article “Les quatorze minutes de cette vidéo sont absolument insoutenablesâ€. This is of really great importance if it is true what he states, as NOBODY ELSE in the whole world ever saw these 14 minutes and they even would not exist as several testimonies state (one of them is on http://www.theaugeanstables.com/2006/11/05/al-durah-affair-media-and-jihad-in-france/ )
So it would also be very usefull if Bruno could confirm he saw these or his statement in was only from hear-saying."
Stevens response:
"As I stated before, I saw the 14 minutes video together with 3000+ other people, most of them international photographers and picture editors, on Friday, September 6 2002, projected at the Campo Santo in Visa pour l’Image in Perpignan. Quite a few LS members were there (before LS existed, of course). It was also an important piece of evidence to condemn in a French court the people who tried to defame Charles Enderlin from France 2. B. "
Response from Roth:
"On the 14 minutes video, there is a lot to be sayd. I suggest you make your comments on one of the appropriate sites and ensure that you have seen the same thing as the others saw: http://www.theaugeanstables.com/ http://www.seconddraft.org/
On the court case: it was not used as any evidence, please read the case itself. And anyhow the case will go into appeal. So was the Dreyfus case more than a century before: several appeals before thruth came to surface.
Anyhow, I am very pleased you took the time to react. It honours you much more than some here who start paranoidly threating with justice on based on their own insinuations. "
I feel that if the bloggers had not brought attention to the above pic, Stvens wouldn't have bothered about MSM behaviour.
Very, very interesting, Cynic.
And there's no doubt that neither this guy nor Taylor Hicks would have spoken out had it not been for outside pressure.