Reuters Photo Is A Fraud? (Vanity with pics)

091505 | Me

[antaresequity]

Rueters Photo A Fraud?

First off the handwriting isn't Bush's...

Look at the first image and compare the 'I'..it appears as if the lower writing is indeed his, but

not the crap about the bathroom break...

Further...when the image is enhanced and sharpened...you can begin to see the blocks of cut and

paste graphics, and their obviosu demarcations...The lower image has been sharpened in fireworks by

three or four degrees...you can see clearly square demarcations around the supposed text..

[dfwgator]

The MSM knows something as silly as this will get mentioned on Leno and Letterman, and give just another reason to ridicule Bush, and since most Americans get their political news from these kind of shows, it actually can have an effect on people's impression of the President.

[OldFriend]

Reuters admitting to using PhotoShop.

Quell surprise!!!!

[lainie]

Reuters Explains Photo Of Bush Bathroom Note
September 15, 2005
By Daryl Lang

Don't blame the photographer.

That's the message from Gary Hershorn, a picture editor for Reuters, about the photo yesterday that shows President George W. Bush writing an all-too-human note during a UN meeting.

Bush is shown writing: "I think I may need a bathroom break. Is this possible."

The photo, which quickly became fodder for blogs and e-mails among friends, was taken by Rick Wilking, a contract photographer based in Denver who recently covered the flooding in New Orleans.

Hershorn, Reuters' news editor for pictures for the Americas, says he's responsible for zooming in on the note and deciding to transmit the photo to Reuters clients. He says Wilking didn't know what the note said when he shot the picture.

"I'm so adamant that Rick has nothing to do with this. He was just the guy who pushed the button," Hershorn says.

In response to the attention the photo is getting, Reuters' spokeswoman in London released a two-sentence statement about the picture: "The photographer and editors on this story were looking for other angles in their coverage of this event, something that went beyond the stock pictures of talking heads that these kind of forums usually offer. This picture certainly does that."

So how did the picture happen?

According to Hershorn, Wilking was one of several photographers covering the United Nations Security Council meeting between about 11 and noon yesterday. He was part of a pool stationed on a balcony that faced Bush's back; a group of White House photographers was on a balcony facing the president.

Wilking shot about 200 images and sent two memory cards to the press room at the U.N., where Hershorn was working. Hershorn looked at the images on a computer and initially decided not to send any of them.

But a few hours later, he started to wonder about a note that Bush was seen writing in three of the pictures. Out of curiosity, he zoomed in to see if he could read it.

Once he saw what it said, Hershorn decided the note was interesting and worth publishing. The white parts of the picture were overexposed, so a Reuters processor used Photoshop to burn down the note. This is a standard practice for news photos, Hershorn says, and the picture was not manipulated in any other way.

Around 4:30 p.m., Reuters transmitted two versions of the photo, including one that was tightly cropped around the note and Bush's hand.

The caption says that Bush was writing the note to Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice; Hershorn says Wilking saw Bush write the note and hand the note to Rice.

Hershorn says heads of state seldom attend Security Council meetings, and it's possible that Bush was simply asking his secretary of state what the proper protocol was to be excused.

Online, some accused Reuters, and the media in general, of being insulting or juvenile. A letter writer to Editor & Publisher wrote, "You ought to all be ashamed of yourselves for this stupid trivia and childish focus."

It's unclear how widely the picture was published; Hershorn says The (Toronto) Globe and Mail published it but he wasn't sure of any other outlets. Hershorn says he decided to transmit the picture because it was interesting.

"There was no malicious intent," he says. "That's not what we do."

[dfwgator]

LOL, you're right.

[rabidralph]

It's down the hall and to the right, and take John with you.

[Orange1998]

Buckhead took a lot of heat for exposing the truth. He even stop posting for a while.

[ARealMothersSonForever]

Rooters is spiking all thier links for this. Par for the course. Somebody called BS, and it turned out to be exactly that.

[CT]

The Media lying? The Media as frauds?

The next thing you will tell me is that Democrats are demogogues....

[InvisibleChurch]

dan rather strikes (out) again

[bobo818]

i thought the President was left handed?

[livius]

This is definitely one of the stupidest things I have ever seen. What's wrong with going to the bathroom?

Also, the "analysis" of the handwriting is ridiculous. I have no idea what Bush's handwriting is like, but many people, particularly smart agressive men, are not noted for their penmanship. Most of them learned to write legibly in the military, where they were told to print everything in block capitals (you should see my son's letters to me...).

[snavarro]

Hilarious. I wonder how many people get that.

[dfwgator]

Could you just see Kofi go "Excuse me, Mr. Bush, would you like to read the note in front of the entire assembly?"

[Fresh Wind]

If you have a dictionary handy, try looking up the word "sarcasm".

[Pharmboy]

Did Dan Rather pick up the fax?

[cdga5for4]

How about the UN keeping the pool photographers far enough away so that they can't take pictures of private notes? As a former NFL PR guy I would have gotten my ass reamed for letting a photographer in a controlled setting get a photo of a call sheet or the like.

[TheZMan]

Thanks. I'm not going to bother reading the rest of the posts.

If you spend any amount of time working with compressed images on a computer, primarily jpg's, you'll note that after saving and reopening there are distortions around the edges (borders) of differing colors in the image. This is a side effect of the compression algorithms.


If you were to use a bmp/tiff type of file with 0 compression, the only distortions would obviously be the pixelation of your monitor and/or the original photograph - when it's too small to see detail and needs to be blown up after scanning.

Now as to whether or not it's fake? Nowadays it's kinda hard to tell. Even if it is, wait... I need to take a leak. Sue me.

[johnny7]

You did.

[Howlin]

It's too late! I called this late last night!

To: kcvl; Mo1; Miss Marple; deport

I call BS on this right now:

Everybody knows Bush only writes with a Sharpie.

122 posted on 09/15/2005 1:17:46 AM EDT by Howlin

[Howlin]

I call BS on this right now:

[faq]

I think you are using a lower quality and reduced size picture for your analysis. When I blow up the picture to 600% my picture is way way bigger than yours.

Go to this thread and get a fresh copy of the picture.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1484660/posts

When you choose "save as" make sure you are not compressing and lowering the quality of the picture (under options).