The smoke that might as well have been there

Via Pajamas Media, I’m catching up on Reutersgate — the primary focus of which right now involves cloned smoke, and staged “rescue workers.” (More here, and Riehl World View explains the technique.)
It must just kill Reuters to have to give credit to blogs. (Although, of course, the news agency repeats its photographer’s assertion that the cloned smoke resulted from the removal of “dust marks” — a claim that reminded Jeff Goldstein of the time he “created five new DVD players” simply by dusting!)
I agree with PJM that Newsbusters sums it up:

?Every once in a while you want to tell yourself that media bias is accidental and not deliberate, a sort of ?they can?t help themselves? phenomenon. This is NOT one of those times.?

They’ll dutifully hang this Adnan Hajj out to dry, but I think he’s as replaceable as a piston.
I think it’s part of a deeply institutionalized, pro-Islamist culture at Reuters. Anti-Israel bias is OK as long as it’s disguised, and can be passed off as objective journalism. If one of these guys is caught red-handed, Reuters will pull the offending item immediately, then claim that they’ve “investigated” and “corrected” the problem.
It almost reminds me of Capitol Hill Blue, except that Reuters can’t be dismissed out of hand as an unreliable news source.
No wonder bloggers are so hated.
MORE: In a major exclusive, IMAO’s Frank J. has an amazing picture showing the shocking devastation caused by an errant Israeli rocket which struck Disney World! And even if it didn’t, it might as well have!