Had such Creative Journalism™ graduates been reporting two World Wars ago, our president today really would be Hitler (Jr. or perhaps one of his nephews).


srael bombing a funeral procession has to be true. That's just something, Reuter Rooters for Jihadis believe, a disproportionately evil joooo would perpetrate against poor oppressed victims of his ruthless zionist aggressions. So you can imagine its journalists' propaganda-purveyors' embarrassment disappointment when this turned out not to be the case (Michelle Malkin).

Yesterday afternoon al-Reuters committed the following drive-by story (emphases in this and all other quotes supplied):

Israeli air strike hits village during funeral

08 Aug 2006 12:34:08 GMT
Source: Reuters

GHAZIYEH, Lebanon, Aug 8 (Reuters) - An Israeli air strike hit this village in south Lebanon on Tuesday while mourners were burying 15 of their kin killed in bombing the previous day.

At least two rockets hit Ghaziyeh during the funeral, though not in the immediate vicinity, a Reuters journalist reported. It was not clear if there were casualties from the latest raid.

The mourners chanted anti-American slogans after the air strike on the Shi'ite village.

Many Lebanese hold the United States partly responsible for Israel's war with Hizbollah.

The Hezbollan News Agency (a/k/a Reuters) apparently added the qualification "not in the immediate vicinity" to the story's previous version. IsraelNN.com caught it about an hour later:

Bombing of Funeral: False Reporting by Reuters

16:43 Aug 08, '06 / 14 Av 5766 [ 13:43 GMT? ]

(IsraelNN.com) The day after it was revealed that a Reuters News Agency doctored photographs to show an anti-Israel bias, the news service incorrectly reported Tuesday afternoon that the IDF bombed a funeral procession in Lebanon.

Reuters has corrected without apology its earlier story that the IDF strafed a funeral procession and updated the report to state that the bombs struck a village at the same time the funeral was taking place, adding that "the air strike was not in the immediate vicinity of the funeral."

Not long afterwards, Mideast: On Target also mentions the addition in one of its "Daily Tid Bit" updates:

5:39 PM [ 2:39 PM / 14:39 GMT? ]: . . . The IDF has not confirmed or denied reports by Reuters that the IAF struck a neighborhood in southern Beirut while a funeral procession was going on. (*Update! The third scandal in three days has hit Reuters. This was false report that has been corrected by the Reuters website. No apology has been given.*)

About a half-hour later, Guardian Unlimited posted its last update of this same story, which includes a photograph by — appropriately enough — Lefteris Pitarakis/AP:

7pm [ 3pm / 15:00 GMT ] update

13 dead in strikes on Lebanese town

Staff and agencies
Tuesday August 8, 2006
Guardian Unlimited

. . . The strikes hit the Shia town of Ghaziyeh while mourners were holding a funeral procession for 15 people killed in air strikes yesterday, sending around 1,500 people running through the streets in panic.

The population of the town, which lies south of the port city of Sidon, has recently swelled to 23,000 as refugees from the fighting elsewhere in southern Lebanon have poured in.

Reuters said buildings close to the funeral procession collapsed, with a witness saying that one of the destroyed buildings belonged to Sheik Mustafa Khalifeh, a cleric with links to Hizbullah.

There goes the Ruthless Indiscriminate Bombing angle. However, it took another three hours before al-Reuters' hezbogandists felt enough damage had been done — to Israel, not any ruthlessly unbombed funeral procession — that they could safely include in this now old drive-by story an actual quote from the Other Side:

Israeli air strikes kill 14 in Lebanon village

08 Aug 2006 18:16:08 GMT
Source: Reuters

(Adds Israeli army comment)

GHAZIYEH, Lebanon, Aug 8 (Reuters) - Israeli air strikes killed 14 people and wounded 23 in the southern Lebanese village of Ghaziyeh on Tuesday, rescue workers said.

The air strikes hit the village as mourners were burying 15 relatives killed in a bombing the previous day, but were not in the immediate vicinity of the funeral, a Reuters witness said.

The mourners chanted anti-American slogans after the air strike on the Shi'ite Muslim village, he said.

"What was targeted was a building that belonged to a senior Hizbollah member," an Israeli army spokeswoman said. "It was on the other side of the town, not anywhere near the (funeral) procession."

She said all residents of the area had been told in advance to leave.

Ghaziyeh, just south of Sidon, the largest city in south Lebanon 40 km (25 miles) from Beirut, has been housing many people displaced from their villages near the border with Israel. Israeli leaflets in Sidon and surrounding villages last week urged resident to leave the area.

Many Lebanese hold the United States, Israel's chief ally, partly responsible for the Israeli war with Hizbollah.

But Gulf News Report wasn't going to hear any of this. By addahhy, some evil jooooos had bombed an innocent funeral procession, and nothing any infidel drive-by story could say was going to change its monolayered factcheckers' minds:

Published: 08/09/2006 12:00 AM (UAE) [ 9:00 PM / 21:00 GMT ]

Carnage continues as UN delays vote
Gulf News Report

Dubai: Arab ministers were trying at the United Nations last night to modify a proposed Security Council resolution aimed at ending Israel's war on Lebanon as Israeli planes and artillery bombed towns in southern and eastern Lebanon and attacked a funeral procession in the village of Gaziyeh, killing at least 16 people.

Around the same time, HNA (a/k/a al-Reuters) itself seemed to feel the original drive-by report sounded better, too, so it salvaged as much of that Ruthless Indiscriminate Bombing angle as it could for its larger story about the Uninspired 'Naction, erasing altogether the Other Side's direct quote along with the name of the Hogzvillian leader specifically targeted by Israel's military:

UN argues about ceasefire

Tue Aug 8, 2006 5:07pm ET [ 9:07pm / 21:07 GMT ]

. . . Israeli air raids killed 14 people and wounded 23 in the southern village of Ghaziyeh, rescue workers and hospital officials said. The bombs fell as mourners elsewhere in the village were burying 15 people killed by a raid there on Monday.

An Israeli army spokeswoman said the building hit belonged to a senior Hizbollah member and was not near the funeral. She said all residents had been told in advance to leave.

Four Israeli soldiers were killed fighting guerrillas, raising Israel's military and civilian death toll to 101 in the war ignited by Hizbollah's capture of two soldiers on July 12.
. . .

Beirut has won some support from Russia as well as France, both of which hold veto power on the Security Council.

"It is obvious to us that a draft that is not favorable to the Lebanese side should not be adopted," said Moscow's U.N. envoy Vitaly Churkin, saying this would only prolong the war.

Lacking any curiosity, it never occurred to even one of the Reuter Rooterers that asking someone there "hey, who used to live in that building?" or trying to find a dropped leaflet warning all residents to evacuate would help refute or confirm what the Israeli army spokeswoman said. Perhaps if she said Adnan Hajj took a photograph of either they would've accepted it as fact.

	5:10 AM

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