Photo fakery at the New York Times
January 16th, 2006
Posted on 01/16/2006 5:19:53 AM PST by saveliberty
Photo fakery at the New York Times
January 16th, 2006
Is a fake staged photo fit to print? What if it staged in a way that makes the US forces fighting the War on Terror look cruel and ineffective? The evidence argues that yes, it can run, and in a prominent position - at least in the case of the New York Times website.
It appears that the Times, once-upon-a-time regarded as the last word in reliability when it comes to checking before publishing (which makes them so much better than blogs, of course), has run a fake photo on the home page of its website. The photo has since been removed from the home page, but still can be seen here.
The picture shows a sad little boy, with a turbaned man next to him, a little bit further from the camera, amid the ruins of a house. Other men and boys peer in from the background. The photo is captioned
“Pakistani men with the remains of a missile fired at a house in the Bajur tribal zone near the Afghan border.”
The story it accompanies is about the apparently failed attempt to take out al Qaeda’s #2 man al Zawahiri, with a missile attack from a Predator drone.
“How sad!” readers are encouraged to think. “These poor people are on the receiving end of awful weapons used by the clumsy minions of Bush. And all to no avail. Isn’t it terrible? Why must America do such horrible misdeeds? Bush must go!”
The only problem is that the long cylindrical item with a conical tip pictured with the boy and the man is not a missile at all. It is an old artillery shell. Not something that would have been fired from a Predator. Indeed, something that must have been found elsewhere and posed with the ruins and the little boy as a means at pulling of the heartstrings of the gullible readers of the New York Times.
Others have noticed the fakery, too.
Ned Barnett is an expert on military technology, and frequently serves as a contributor to The History Channel on mil-tech issues. He has plenty of experience researching military ordnance. He told me:
“Based on my extensive experience in researching military technology, I can verify that this is a 152mm or 155mm artillery shell – unfired – and by the looks of it, fairly old. It also looks like it has a fuse in it, suggesting that the guys in the photo are either ditch-water dumb or have a death-wish.
“At a glance, it’s hard to tell the exact caliber – 152mm or 155mm (they’re so close) but the Soviets tended to favor 152 (going back to WW-II) while we and the Brits, the French and most of the rest of the non-Soviet world (including, oddly, the PRC) preferred the 155. For all intents and purposes, they were functionally identical (but were not interchangeable). In caliber, this is also virtually identical to Naval 6” rounds (routinely used by the Brits, the Imperial Japanese Navy and the USN), but of course, it’s unlikely that the Pakistanis would unearth a Naval round not widely used since Vietnam (much more common in WW-I and WW-II) hundreds of miles from the nearest salt water.
“These shells could fire high explosive (HP), chemical white smoke (white phosphorous – aka “Willie Pete” – a smoke-producing shell that’s also hideous if you get the WP on you, as it burns on contact with air and nothing much will put it out), armor-piercing and semi-armor piercing – even poison gas (there’s much evidence that Saddam used French 155 shells for poison gas purposes against the Kurds, and possibly the Iranians). They are very common, and have been so since WW-I. They remain common throughout the world as one of the “standard” artillery sizes. To me, this looks like a HP shell, but the proof would come in interpreting the markings (that yellow band, plus stenciling).
“Small-caliber artillery comes in a casing with the propellant and shell in the same package – like a very large rifle bullet – but larger artillery has the shell (seen in the photo) packed separately from the propellant charge (which is generally in silk bags or other combustible containers). Rockets of all calibers also have integral propellant. The pictured shell does not have integral propellant, so it couldn’t possibly be a rocket (by the way, the standard ex-Soviet rocket caliber was 122mm – noticeably smaller than this puppy).
(A “decent basic primer” on artillery shells can be found here.)
“Just as this one does, all artillery shells have markings (usually colored bands) which show the cannon-cockers at a glance what kind of shell they’re loading (blue for practice, other colors for different types of “live” shells). Somewhere I have an old standard reference on Soviet markings (and another on standard US markings), but they’re buried in my library, so I can’t immediately ID who made this shell.
“The make, however, is immaterial. The 152/155mm artillery shell has been in common, world-wide distribution since at least 1918. While it doesn’t look old enough to be of even WW-II vintage, that’s no guarantee. When it comes to artillery shells, most countries are pack-rats. At the time of their fall, the Soviets still had stockpiles of WW-II era shells, and they worked. (In Vietnam, most of the bombs we dropped from airplanes had been manufactured in ‘41-’45.) They don’t wear out, and as long as the fuses are live, most of the shells will be, too.
“Bottom line: the “provenance” of this shell, given it’s location in the world, could be Soviet (or ex-Soviet), [PRC] Chinese, British, French, American, NATO, Yugoslavian, Warsaw Pact (Czech, most likely, if WarPac), or as a long shot, potentially (though unlikely) even Imperial Japanese. In short, absent a manual on color-bands and a close look at stenciling, there’s no way to tell who made the damned thing. Nor is it important.
“The New York Times claim that it was the remains of a rocket is nonsense. Rockets are frail, light-weight, flimsy things (for obvious reasons). Artillery shells are robust, mostly cast steel (the explosive weight is really rather small considering the overall weight of the shell), again for obvious reasons. Take a look yourself. In addition, artillery shells have bands that grab onto the rifling of the cannon barrel – this is obvious (the lower segmented brass-over-white-paint band) on the shell in this photo. Rockets do not have this, as they use fins or directional exhaust nozzles to spin-stabilize themselves.”
So the formerly authoritative New York Times has published a picture distributed around the world on the home page of its website, using a prop which must have been artfully placed to create a false dramatic impression of cruel incompetence on the part of US forces. Not only did the editors lack the basic knowledge necessary to detect the fake, they didn’t bother to run the photo past anyone with such knowledge before exposing the world to it.
There is an old saying in journalism about stories which editors really want to run: “too good to check.” It is plainly clear that the New York Times thought this story was too good to check. Their standard of “good” is painfully obvious to all.
Without the internet and blogosphere, probably they would have gotten away with it.
Thomas Lifson is the editor and publisher of The American Thinker.
Thomas Lifson
And the claims that we were bombing every wedding in Afghanistan. I'm surprised they missed that one here.
You might as well complain to Stalin about communism. The NYT is enemy propaganda, not a news source. They know whose side they are on; do you?
from Powerline:
"...Which means the photo was deliberately faked by the people depicted, probably with the knowing aid of the AFP photographer. I think the villagers were lying about not hosting members of al Qaeda, too.
ONE MORE THING: The photo is still up at Yahoo News Photos, but with a changed caption that now says the men are shown standing next to "a unexploded ordnance." Yes, probably from the 1980s. No doubt the picture will be reproduced in many newspapers around the world."
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/012851.php
"When I first saw the picture what I noticed right away was the rifling on the seal band for sealing the round against the inside of the tube. I don't know what all those things are called..."
That thing is the obturator ring and performs the function you describe by engaging the rifling in order to spin stabilize itself in flight. The round showed in the original picture is also missing a fuse as it appears it has a shipping plug in place that is removed to screw in the required fuse. Without a fuse, it is not going to explode as designed.
Sorry, sometimes the gun-nut in me overrides my sense of humor.
Good Job Freepers!!
"Wonder how long til the NYT just goes under?"
I got a call then a letter from them trying to get me to subscribe.
I said, "Yeah right. The NY Times doesnt have any credibility."
The reply was something like, '...sorry you feel that way...'
When I get those calls I always just laugh and say "I don't know anyone dumb enough to buy the New York Times."
The photo is a crude fake. Look at the edges of the shell....they are sharp in contrast with other straight edges in the photo. The light angle also doesn't look right on the shell compared to the rest of the photo. The shell seems strangely vertical despite what appears to be a very uneven surface on which it rests. IMHO what was done was a picture of an artillary shell was "cut out" using Photoshop and pasted into this image of the Pakistani men. Anyone with even basic Photoshop experience could accomplish this in a matter of minutes.
Thank you!
Did the body of the projectile used to be blue? When I served (about a hundred years ago) blue indicated a practice round.
"Wonder how long til the NYT just goes under?"
They are just the most disgusting excuse for a newspaper...
If they, "went under" today, it wouldn't bother me in the least. You've gone one step too far, NYT, so BEWARE!!!
It also shows what kind of morons they have working at the NYT. Even someone with only a passing knowledge of the military would realize that is an artillery shell. It's obvious they assign people with absolutely no credentials to cover stories they are totally unpreprepared to understand.
You got it all wrong.. this looks like a suburb of New Orleans. The wall in the back is part of the lower 17th street canal levee system the Bush administration blew up on purpose. The Russian shell is the proof Jesse Jackson is looking for. If you increase the resolution in the lower right had corner of the shell it states: "Use this one" G.W.
Yes..I realize they are the DNC media outlet which sets the tone of the media cycle as the other news services eagerly disseminate the daily talking points. What we have here is a blatant case of journalistic fraud proven by the URL of the photo.
How to they get discredited and beaten over the head with this? This is essentially the Jason Blair scam all over again.
It's okay for the uninitiated to be assigned to the story, but that person has the obligation of knowing how to check and recheck the information.
"Pakistani villagers pose with an old Soviet 152mm artillery shell, of the kind used to make improvised explosive devices in Iraq. Why? Ask them."
IMHO what was done was a picture of an artillary shell was "cut out" using Photoshop and pasted into this image of the Pakistani men...
I think you're right. Another thing I noticed is that the focus is quite sharp on the rifling grooves on the copper band, the kid is in sharp focus & the old man, who appears to be standing a little in front of the shell is a bit fuzzy--check the turban. The fabric folds should look sharper, shouldn't they?
The other thing that is nagging at me is that the photo seems remotely familiar...like I've seen it or parts of it before.
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