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Wed Aug 2 -

Lebanon and the Press:
STAGE-MANAGING
THE QANA RESCUE --

*Veracity of news photos in Lebanon questioned. Three agencies all covered rescue operations Sunday in Qana, where 56 Lebanese were killed. Many of their photos depicted rescue workers carrying dead children. They were AP, AFP and Reuters. All three rejected challenges to the veracity of their photographs of bodies taken in the aftermath of an Israeli airstrike in Lebanon, strongly denying that the images were staged.*
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Over the past several days, I have been blogging numerous references to the menacing or lurking presence of Hezbollah shadowing journalists and the group's efforts to stage-manage the news coverage:

WHAT THEY SAID - CJR - 7/28/06 - 11:57 AM *The Party of God has a copy of every journalist's passport, and they've already hassled a number of us and threatened one.*
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FROM THE SHADOWS OF QANA - Richard Engel MSNBC 7/31/06 11:55 PM *Hezbollah fighters emerge from the shadows.*
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THE WATCHERS - Ulrike Putz - Spiegel - 8/01/06 11:55 PM *militants carefully observe who comes and goes. Cars passing through are reported by Walkie-Talkie and journalists are told what they are allowed to film.*

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Paul McLeary writes an article at CJR (cited above) about the Hezbollah PR Effort, addressing how Hezbollah is trying to shape the news coverage. He discusses Howard Kurtz's Reliable Sources program covering this topic, the transcript of which I cited on my blog in a previous entry dated Mon. July 24th. He refers to an exchange Kurtz had with Nic Robertson on this very topic. And then mentions Anderson Cooper with a similar anecdote: "we found ourselves with other foreign reporters taken on a guided tour by Hezbollah ... They only allowed us to videotape certain streets, certain buildings."

He ends his article with the question of intimidation because of the reporters' passports. But, even more paramount, I believe, is the issue alluded to by Nic Robertson in McCleary's CJR article: "They can turn on and off access."

I think, at the end of the day, the key operative word here is: Access. The Press needs it; without Access, they come away with no product to send to their boss. If they don't get product, they either lose their jobs or won't get crucial assignments because they've demonstrated that the agency they work for can't depend on them for its contents.
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