But, as Charles Johnson points out, Reuters takes no responsibility for it photo editors’ inability to spot the same obvious fraud that a host of conservative bloggers pounced on like Jane Hamsher on a remainders bin copy of Bamboozled!. From Reuters:
Reuters, the global news and information agency, told a freelance Lebanese photographer on Sunday it would not use any more of his pictures after he doctored an image of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on Beirut. …
Reuters withdrew the doctored image on Sunday and replaced it with the unaltered photograph after several news blogs said it had been manipulated using Photoshop software to show more smoke. Reuters has strict standards of accuracy that bar the manipulation of images in ways that mislead the viewer.
“The photographer has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under,†said Moira Whittle, the head of public relations for Reuters.
—Which is not too farfetched, I don’t think. After all, I once tried to dust my DVD player with only a desklamp on, and the next morning I noticed that I’d somehow created five new DVD players.
And how freaky is that?
But I digress. Here’s Reuters, playing CYA:
“This represents a serious breach of Reuters’ standards and we shall not be accepting or using pictures taken by him,†Whittle said in a statement issued in London. Hajj worked for Reuters as a non-staff freelance, or contributing photographer, from 1993 until 2003 and again since April 2005.
Nice that they won’t be taking any new photos from him.
But it’d be nicer still if they commissioned someone to go back through his photo archives and look for a pattern of deception. Because I’d hate to think that, say, a number of Israeli teens shopping at a mall were blown up because one of Mr Hajj’s photos provided the outaged cover for activating another suicide bomber.
Meanwhile, the green helmet man is parading around more dead bodies for the media. And sadly, they’ll never be a shortage of photojournalists willing to overlook what it beginning to look suspiciously like an organized propaganda campaign for the chance maybe to nab themselves a Pulitzer. (h/t Charles Johnson. WARNING: Gruesome photos)
****
update: AJ Strata posits that green helmet man—who may be a mortician from Tyre—could be responsible for inflating the death toll at Qana.
Goldstein:
[…] and the next morning I noticed that I’d somehow created five new DVD players.
Tee hee!
A katyusha in every garage and a Jenin in every pot.
Sumbitches.
Hilarious point by a commenter at Ace’s:
lmfao.
Jeff-
Given Iran’s involvement in the current war, why is Tehran not on the table as a legitimate target?
“Reuters–Where ‘Blowing Smoke’ is More Than an Esoteric Tantric Technique Practiced by Our Nearly-Divorced Photo-Editor During Weekend Romps in Beirut’s Finest Opium Dens–It’s Our Commitment to You!”
“This represents a serious breach of Reuters’ standards and we shall not be accepting or using pictures taken by him,” Whittle said in a statement issued in London. “However, we will continue to accept pictures from his twin sister, Leni Riefenshajj–she’s the ‘good twin’,” said Whittle while she worked.”
…if by “serious breach of standards”, we mean “Standard Operating Procedure”.
Well to be honest with you, I am not too suprised by the arrogance of all other media outlets and their willingness to show all the fake photos in the first place. Judging by what I saw on the local morning news stations and programs this morning, there is definately a clear cut agenda on the table here. Damn those evil Jooooooooos
They aren’t searching through his old photos becuase they know… know what they will find when they do. I no longer think this sort of nonsense is strictly about protecting their reputations. It is about protecting their political point of view.
Reuters pushes back.
TW- policy. It could be true- that’s our policy.
Mary, Mary, is that you? This Reuters gig is tough, tougher than a Texas hail storm, tougher than a messican hooker on 6th St. in Austin, tougher than Katie Couric’s five o’clock shadow.
Do you love me Mary????……quick hold….Mohammed, I did not promise that the virgins wouldn’t have mustaches…Mapester?? I’ll call you back…..courage.
TECHNOLOGIST! Oppressed
Pallywoodinsurgent reporters still use old 12” monochrome screens run on car batteries.(Hooked up to 3.0gHz CPU’s connected to $1000 electronic tablets and all running $500 graphics packages in XP but who’s counting?)
Which is not too farfetched, I don’t think. After all, I once tried to dust my DVD player with only a desklamp on, and the next morning I noticed that I’d somehow created five new DVD players.
Ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!
Which is not too farfetched, I don’t think. After all, I once tried to dust my DVD player with only a desklamp on, and the next morning I noticed that I’d somehow created five new DVD players.
Ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!
Which is not too farfetched, I don’t think. After all, I once tried to dust my DVD player with only a desklamp on, and the next morning I noticed that I’d somehow created five new DVD players.
Ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!
Which is not too farfetched, I don’t think. After all, I once tried to dust my DVD player with only a desklamp on, and the next morning I noticed that I’d somehow created five new DVD players.
Ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!
Which is not too farfetched, I don’t think. After all, I once tried to dust my DVD player with only a desklamp on, and the next morning I noticed that I’d somehow created five new DVD players.
Ha haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!!!!!!
If you photochopped a staw boater on him, the Green Helmet Guy cwould be Kolchak, the Night Stalker.
Darren McGavin was always turning up in odd situations which featured …. DEATH. And he wore a hat, too.
I think maybe you guys are not considering the possibility that RIGHT NOW there’s a news director in Beirut named Simon al-Oakland looking at a deadline wondering where the hell the copy is for the bulldog edition.
.
Jeff and friends,
Like many other Photoshop fans, I decided to create my own pic to see if I could outdo the Reuters version. Well DUH! Then I removed the dust from the photo and imagine that, an image of Godzilla appeared! Who’d a thunk it?
See the images here:
http://saberpoint.blogspot.com/2006/08/photoshopping-with-al-reuters.html
– Which version does this disclaimer cover, the second fake of the fake of the original pic they posted, or the first fake of the original, because I’m all set to believe if they’d just “dust” off the original, provided no 5 mile in diameter Astroids hit the earth in the next 10 minutes, and Lurch produces that form 180.
On another thread, I expressed reservations about the photo being worthy of such criticism. I took my questions to a photographer at the Sports Photographer site Michelle Malkin links to, and got this response (I am leaving his name anonymous):
I can shed some light on this for you. In a nutshell, the photographer committed one of the cardinal sins of photojournalism. In response
last week to a controversey that arose when a photographer was fired by a paper for changing the color of the sky in the background and adding a halo around the sun, Robert Hanashiro, a staff photographer for USA Today, added his
thoughts:
“Journalism comes down to one very simple, but important thing. Trust.
Our job as journalists is to educate, enlighten, entertain and inform the public. For us to do this, we must have trust of the people who see our work and those who are the subjects of our stories.
A couple of recent incidents have caused me to think about trust and how perilous a thing it is.
Whenever a journalist becomes the news, instead of just reporting it, it can only mean bad things . usually the further eroding of our credibility and standing with the public. It seems every week there is something on the news
gossip website that further tarnishes our reputation and takes another bite out of journalism’s credibility.
People must be able to look at our work and trust that it is what it appears to be: An accurate depiction of the story we are telling.
Whether it is manipulating a news situation, taking a quote out of context, combining multiple images to make one or altering the content, it casts doubt on the story we are trying to tell. Can readers expect to trust
us after they just read about another incident of digital manipulation?
Looking at a news photograph, a reader may now have to ask: “Is that photojournalism? Or is that Photoshop-alism?”
Journalism isn’t about winning awards and interpretation shouldn’t mean drastically changing the content of a scene to match what you “see” versus what the camera ‘sees’.” http://www.sportsshooter.com/current.html
As for your questions:
1) The altered photo does not improve on the “original”, so why do it? All it adds, if anything, is a dark mood.
I have no idea why the photo was manipulated. Other than adding a lot more smoke to the scene, the original image seems to convey the story
just fine. That’s the $64K question. Perhaps he was messing around with the image, and sent the one he was playing around with instead of the intended original.
2) This would be a bigger deal to me if the original showed no smoke, and therefore no attack, then was altered to show that an attack
happened. But either photo essentially shows that an attack happened.
The problem is that once you digitally alter the content of an image, the whole image becomes suspect. It’s like an expert witness taking the
stand in a trial and giving great testimony… but at the end he stands up and declares that he’s also the Easter Bunny. To most juries, that last pronouncement would likely cloud their trust in the previous statements made on the stand. People may say “Well, if he faked some of the smoke, maybe it’s all fake!”
3) What are the rules for news organizations? Should photos never be altered?
Each organization has its own set of specific guidelines about what is allowed and isn’t allowed when changing an image. There’s a general rule that applies: If some else was standing beside you at the moment you took
the photo and they were able to see the exact same image your image shows, then it’s OK. That doesn’t mean sees the same sort of thing, it means the exact same thing. If you move beyond cropping the image, color correction (cleaning up skin tones), and lightening shadows, then you’re likely in trouble. Photo manipulation often leads to the termination of employment.
4) It seems to me that all Reuters can be accused of is employing photog’s who need Photoshop training.
The photographer submitted a “work of art”, and not a photo that was supposed to be an accurate rendering of what was happening at that
moment. Without question, he would have violated the policies of any media publication and news service. Refer to Robert Hanashiro’s comments
above.
Here is the AP’s policy:
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=46967
Here is the
New York Times’:
http://www.poynter.org/content/content_view.asp?id=46973
END
Maybe this was obvious to all of you, but I had to dig more. Just sharing it as an FYI.
In my post above at 7:29, the photographer I quote mentions an incident at a paper in Charlotte, NC, where a photographer doctored a photo of the sunset. He was fired. Here’s the link to that story and photo.
I know many of the Left blogs have decided not to talk about the Lebanon conflict because they don’t want to divide their readers (which is just as well – they have nothing to say anyway), but isn’t it interesting that caring about pro-terrorist propaganda duping the MSM is something Left bloggers seem not to concerned about at all?
For whatever reason, it looks like Left bloggers have taken the position of not giving Reutergate any air just as they do with more obviously partisan scandals they fear will hurt them. Why is Reutergate a partisan issue? The photo was a fake. The Left has not been curious about Hizballah manipulating the news for the entirety of this conflict (and have attempted to paint those who are curious as the equivalent of 9/11 conspiracy theorists), and now that the curious have found a smoking gun they remain unconcerned. I guess they have bigger fish to fry, like the completely mediocre, uninspiring, and under-qualified Ned Lamont…..
I’ve blogged on this myself, and I’ve concluded that Brian and I are both pretentious assholes, and probably Christianists.
And hit the tip jar you cheap fucks.
Mr. Hajj? Kafir, please.
For more on this story, we go live to our Middle East correspondent, Captain Exodus. Captain?
Bet: This “photographer” doesn’t exist, except as a beyond-ironically named funnel for Hezb’ propaganda photos.
Don’t you have a pillow to bite?
I have no idea why the photo was manipulated. Other than adding a lot more smoke to the scene, the original image seems to convey the story
just fine.
The photoshopped version makes it look like there are multiple fires raging in a more heavily populated area. The “original” photo (in quotes because it’s suspicious as well) has only one fire from one building.
The front page of Daily Kos is very interesting. They’ve got 7 posts on Congressional races (5 of those the CT race) and five open threads.
It’s almost as if they don’t want to talk about war.
After a couple of Jim Beams I’m really beginning to enjoy Reutergate. Could someone please Photoshop a goiter onto a photo of Dan Rather or (even better) Arafat?
Just thinking of the alliterative possibilities of goitergate makes me dyspneic.
Or how about a goiter on Kos?
Somehow, poetic justice?
Remember the game Night Stalker for Intellivision? That was awesome.
Seeing Rather on Chris Matthews this morning speaking about trust in the media was mondo absurdo. No substance on that program whatsoever. Just mainly the lefty narrative about being called “bad Americans” and so on.
Intellivision was flippin’ sweet, but the buttons on the sides of the controller would cause mucho pain after an hour of play.
Five DVD players, huh? Well, you know about the mohel who was presented with a wallet made of his clippings. After he dusted it, it turned into a suitcase.
Oh, yeah, and here’s a ”photo” of an Israeli hit on a Hizbollah mosque south of Beirut.
Pablo: They’ll never talk about the war because doing so would only reveal their sympathy for Hez and kill their chances at regaining power. Smart move.
After seeing the photo in question who here could have offered this idiotic statement as part of a PR defense strategy?
Anyone?
Sit down Mr. Rather.
Shut up, too.
Hey, wishbone, after their telling us that the guy’s laptop batteries ran down and he had to work by candle light, a straight denial is almost refreshingly candid.
Regards,
Ric
Try:
http://ace.mu.nu/archives/189537.php
http://www.riehlworldview.com/
Check this out. One can only dream.
Teacher Arrested For Internet Threats
Speaking of which, Hose, it appears the bewitching hour may have arrived again.
You know those hundred-frames-a-second slomo cams they have now? This is kinda like that.
Oh? I saw nothing lately, other than some twit correcting my spelling on one word, and using childish name-change attempt at an insult.
I just wish I could be there when she is presented with the insults she made about the attorney and the judge. Now THAT is “must see t.v.”
Pretty scary when you realize Rathergate was no wake-up call to a profession. So much so it appears that Rather-like crap is standard operating procedure and the professionals as a whole were just pissed he got caught.
WAIT…it’s been my understanding that the photog/journo’s on the field just dump their images into an established FTP folder and the photo editors direct the image altering (scratches and whatnot) – and if you think about it it makes sense, these fellers on the field are too busy with all the action to labor away, photoshop touching their images for fucking dust and scratches!
I thought there was an in depth explanation to this with regards to the Condi “evil eyes” photo, but being quick I’ll go with the USA Today’s apology to the image…
I really recall their being a description of the FTP procedure, and anyways the photo editors are the one that make the call to “clean-up” an image since the call is supposedly based on the print quality/readiness…so one question I have, given that the editors make the call TO FIX images, why would Reuters retail the photog’s “dust and scratches” bullshit when—the actual photogs shouldn’t be touching, or have the time to touch-up their images, it IS the editors responsibility.
IN otherwords…Reuters really screwed their own pooch here, what they should have said, is the guy is canned BECAUSE he TOUCHED an image, period. What they admitted to, inadvertently IMO, is that they are in the habit of accepting altered images, that they allow their associates to alter the image pre-submittal, that they have no standards the impose on their photog’s to submit pure images.
They left the door open, they should be in big trouble for this…if altering is an editors call for print quality than the should be OUTRAGED one of their associates was even touching up a damn photo. (and using the clone tool and darkening the image and so on)
Indeed. As a Some Guy who hasn’t seen many (any) scenes of urban war-zone destruction in person, the two pictures conveyed very different impressions to me. The altered photo made me think that the damage done can be described in terms of city blocks- both from the bottom left and center sections of the pictures. However, the unaltered photo suggests the damage done can be described in terms of a number of buildings…likely 3 with a good wind pushing the smoke across the city.
With my very amature eye and my own tendancy to only give cursory looks at photos like that, the altered photo gives an impression, dare I say, of indescriminate bombing. The unaltered photo suggests a much higher level of percision.
Well I don’t know about all of you, but when I do a little minor touch-up to my photos, sometimes I end up with like, five or six naked women in what was supposed to be a nice little family group photo, so gosh, I guess it COULD happen!
Look, the fact that al-Reuters accepted and printed a Photoshopped picture should come as a surprise to no one. They’ve shown what side their on for the past five years, and I haven’t seen any indication that they’re going to change.
TW: body. The body of work used by al-Reuters has been suspect for years.
Ok, I have a question:
Al Rooters claim the guy is canned because he monkeyed around with the picture.
Assuming that’s true, how did Al Rooters have the original on hand to replace the altered one with?
Did habib send both? If so, why? And how would this not set off bells and whistles at the editor’s desk?
Something stinky here, yet.
…how did Al Rooters have the original on hand to replace the altered one with?
Now, that is an interesting question, isn’t it?
I want to know how you get dust on a digital photo.
Assuming that’s true, how did Al Rooters have the original on hand to replace the altered one with?
Well, this is easy. They got the original from the guy, who probably had the raw photo still on his photo card.
I want to know how you get dust on a digital photo.
The lens. It happens frequently, especially if you’re in a place where there is dust flying around.
By the way, this post isn’t accepting trackbacks. Here’s a post that links to it:
http://twoshotsandanolive.blogspot.com/2006/08/doctored-photos-i-saw-this-photo-while.html
Dust on a lens would be afocal i.e., not in the focal plane.
At that point in time, he was still claiming not to have done anything.
If he turns in the original, its game over.
I submit: They threw him under the bus on this one.
I certainly do not purport that he was innocent, but looks to me like they tossed him away like the cheap whore that he is to get separation. I see no way in which Reuters is/was not complicit in the agitprop effort.
I question the timing.
You can’t make this stuff up:
I’m not really blaming the Lebanese Prime Minister on this one. My guess is he was just repeating what he’d read from Reuters. It’s a mistake anyone could make.
Dust on a lens would be afocal i.e., not in the focal plane.
Of course it is. But, news photographers still remove dust that’s collected on the end of the lens from the finished photo. They also lighten up shadows and do other stuff to make the photo more accurately represent what it is that they were looking at in the first place. And, no, this is not unethical. They’re trying to represent something as it looked at the time to the naked eye, not how the camera saw it.
I see no way in which Reuters is/was not complicit in the agitprop effort.
You’re certainly free to your conspiracy theories, and I’m not going to try to stop you from going over the falls of reason, but there are better ways in Photoshop to doctor smoke to make it look worse that aren’t so easy to spot as duplicating part of an image and pasting it. If an actual professional news service were to actually do this, and try to sell it to clients (and Reuters is there to make money, after all), do you really think they’d take the route most likely to get them caught?
A more reasonable, likely explanation is that the photographer monkeyed with the photo, sent it to Reuters, and that the Reuters photo desk prepped it for its clients without looking to see if it’d been manipulated. And, when it became obvious that it had, Reuters contacted the guy and said, “Unless you send us the raw image, we’re not paying you for this,” and which point he sent it to them.
But, by all means, believe what you want to believe.
“A more reasonable, likely explanation is that the photographer monkeyed with the photo, sent it to Reuters, and that the Reuters photo desk prepped it for its clients without looking to see if it’d been manipulated.”
Ah. So it’s not a conspiracy. Reuters is just incompetent and/or unconsciously biased on the side of Terrorists.
I’m not sure which is worse for a news org’s reputation.
Horse-shit.
Looking back on his “body of work”, its not clear to me that there are any photos this propagandist DIDN’T alter, stage, manipulate, photo-shop or take at the behest of his fellow terrorists.
The Media is a battlefield. And Hajj–and Reuters–have clearly taken sides. They are Tom Paines in reverse.
Reuterquiddick, dammit! Reuterquiddick!
But you see, Jeff, that what’s important is that there was smoke in the original, just not enough to get across the point that Israel is bloodthirsty and evil. Journalist know that objectivity is an outdated notion based upon beurgeois notions of indivual moral agency. A journalist’s first concern is helping the masses make the correct conclusion about any current event. Narratives are too hard for American Idol viewers and NASCAR fans to construct on their own.
beurgeois: those portions of 18th century french society that preferred butter to margarine.
Grouch, I agree…given that they do have dedicated image editors and they were able to supply the so-called original so quick. I submit they have an in-house photo-chopper policy so to speak.
Reuters Via HotAir
and also notices that while Reuters has acknowledged image number 2 was so altered as to have added two flares the accompanied Caption did not identify them as “Flares”, but “missles”
Anyways, I think it’s fair to conclude that Reuters staff has more culpability and are throwing Hajj on the sword.
Captain Salty – if this had been a singular event, perhaps I would agree with you. If Reuters was an organization with no apparent bias whatsoever, I would agree with you. But the actions of Reuters have been suspect for years. There’s a reason they’re nicknamed “al-Reuters”, as they seem to put out more propaganda for the terrorists than the splodydopes do themselves.
These photos aren’t an act that causes us to be wary of Reuters. These confirm the suspiciouns that we had for a while.
Captain Salty’s right about dust—digital SLRs can show visible dust on an image. It doesn’t happen much with cameras with a single lens because the mechanism is sealed, but I’ve had this problem with my Canon D30 and 10D, which have removable lenses that can allow dust to settle.
The photographer’s still lying about “accidentally” adding the smoke, of course, but it’s important to get stuff like this correct.
Wow! I didn’t know that site was that good!