Hizballah's Media Machine

Controlling the media out of the South and the Dahiyeh (Beirut's southern suburbs) is a speciality of Hizballah (no surprises there).

Here is an write-up on someone's website with some proof of this (re: the Reuters photo scandal and others). You'll see some obvious photographic set-ups (in other words, fakeries). Basically, any reporter trying to cover these aforementioned areas in Lebanon, has to have Hizballah handlers with him/her and and is sometimes even given directions on how to take pictures by the militia. Shameful, but again, not surprising.

In any case, this behavior isn't limited to those partisans of God (is He rolling His eyes somewhere and shaking His head?). Wars have always been PR opportunities for the combating parties (cynical, I know). Over the last decade, wars have increasingly become media events, replete with over-the-top dramas, scandals, shocks and glossy visuals, and that trend will probably not diminish in time.