for a fantastic and devastating post. In it Allah completely dismantles a shoddy piece by Editor and Publisher’s editor Greg Mitchell.

I was going to make the title, “E&P editor attacks bloggers over Reutersgate, misrepresents pretty much everything,” but his article’s only the first of two parts. So perhaps the misrepresentations will be addressed in today’s exciting conclusion.

Although I wouldn’t bet on it.

Now the meat of it. All emphases mine:

[O]ne American photographer in Lebanon, Bryan Denton, often cited by the blogs as backing their claims, has now apologized for his earlier “irresponsible” assertions at the Lightstalkers site, and stated flatly, “Any one out there who is trying to politicize that is just plain sick, and is moving this further away from the real issue at hand. There are hundreds of photographers working here now. Don’t let a few bad apples take the attention away from what the REAL story is, because by the looks of the blogs, THAT is exactly what is happening.” Don’t expect to find those second thoughts on any of the blogs.

At no point does Mitchell actually describe what Denton alleged — namely, that while in Lebanon he personally witnessed “one case where a group of wire photogs were choreographing the unearthing of bodies, directing emergency workers here and there, asking them to position bodies just so, even remove bodies that have already been put in graves so that they can photograph them in peoples arms.”

Nor does he mention that later in the same thread Denton repeated the allegation and asserted that he’d heard from friends in Lebanon that it wasn’t an isolated incident. To read Mitchell, you would think that Denton had “apologized” and retracted his accusation. Nothing of the sort. Here’s what Denton actually said:

again, i am terribly sorry for rattling the saber so hard….re-reading my words I too should have been a bit more responsible.

He was sorry that his accusation had caused so much commotion. He wasn’t suggesting that what he said was untrue. On the contrary.

Who knows, though? Maybe Mitchell’s planning to explain all this in part two.
I wouldn’t bet on it.