Jerusalem AP Bureau Chief, Ravi Nessman

(This is a photo of a video screen.)

At a convention of international media in Jerusalem on August 28th, Ravi Nessman, the Jerusalem AP Bureau Chief, said:

The "faux graphs" were very difficult for us, because after that our credibility plumetted, and the credibility of the bloggers who covered it skyrocketed.

This documents how far-reaching the effect was, of the blogosphere's coverage of this story.

The convention was organized by the Mideast Press Club, which is a project of The Media Line, a news organization located in Jerusalem, whose mission is "to provide credible, unbiased content, background and context to local media outlets throughout the Middle East and around the world, including the United States, Canada, Europe and Australasia."

Last night at a private residence in Los Angeles, the founders of The Media Line spoke. They are Michael and Felice Friedson. They presented video from the conference, including the clip quoted above.

They also provided fascinating insights into media coverage in the Mid-East. One was that they've found that there appear to be a number of Arab Palestinian reporters who:

...don't want to be owned by the P.A. They don't believe the P.A. supports democracy, but they see a free press as a harbinger of democracy.

The Media Line has an excellent registry of Mid-East bloggers. You can find it here.