Where there's smoke, there's firestorm.

After a freelance photographer sold a Photoshopped image of burning buildings in Lebanon to Reuters, they printed it-- then withdrew it, issued an apology, and fired the photographer. Perhaps the worst thing about it is Reuters' inability to spot such a lousy bit of Photoshopping work. There was plenty of smoke in the picture to begin with, as you can see (with some analysis) here, so it's hard to imagine why the photog manipulated the picture to begin with. Regardless, Reuters owned up to their error and atoned. Case closed, right? Not with right-wing blogs on the case:

It is indisputably wrong for a media outlet to alter photographs or other information so as to falsely represent what is being reported. That is beyond dispute. Yet for three straight days now (and still going strong), the right-wing blogosphere has been wallowing in a self-celebratory swarm because two photographs taken in Lebanon and published by Reuters were found to have been altered using Photoshop by the freelance photographer who submitted them. Rush Limbaugh has now joined the party, decreeing that "Reuters ought to be investigated." (. . .)

These excited bloggers seem to be using the Reuters incident to try to "prove" that the dreaded "mainstream media" -- and Reuters has long been a special target for many extremists on the right (who sometimes refer to it as "al-Reuters") -- is hopelessly biased against Israel and in favor of Islamic terrorists, including Hezbollah, and that nothing the MSM reports about this war, or anything else for that matter, can be trusted. Many of these bloggers appear to hope that this incident will call into question the reliability of all reporting on the war outside of YTNews and Fox, including what happened in Qana, Lebanon, and any reports that reflect negatively on the Israeli war effort.

In other news, liberal bloggers are still extremists living in a state of constant rage.