Boy, this Hajj fella was busy staging plenty photographs. So he got there just in time to snap this picture of a 50% burned Koran, eh?
Posted on 08/06/2006 2:51:43 PM PDT by PajamaTruthMafia
LONDON, Aug 6 (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.
The photograph by Adnan Hajj, which was published on news Web sites on Saturday, showed thick black smoke rising above buildings in the Lebanese capital after an Israeli air raid in the war with the Shi'ite Islamic group Hizbollah, now in its fourth week.
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.
"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.
He was among several photographers from the main international news agencies whose images of a dead child being held up by a rescuer in the village of Qana, south Lebanon, after an Israeli air strike on July 30 have been challenged by blogs critical of the mainstream media's coverage of the Middle East conflict.
Reuters and other news organisations reviewed those images and have all rejected allegations that the photographs were staged.
Boy, this Hajj fella was busy staging plenty photographs. So he got there just in time to snap this picture of a 50% burned Koran, eh?
You are the best, ROTFLMAO.
Reuters has strict standards of manipulation of images
They must be doctored in such a way that won't cause suspicion. "Don't get caught" says Reuters handbook covering spinning, doctoring and deceit.
That photo isn't quite right either, Dallas. I clearly see two objects that should be natural but have obviously been touched up by human hands .... right by the letters "IDF".
I also think it is a process issue, to split the photographer from the image manipulation as part of checks and balances, the way an editor position is supposed to work. News organizations should handle images the way banks handle money. Bank employees can't just grab handfulls of money out of the safe. There is a process that always will involve other prople and a paper trail. Here, the standards are the process. Circumventing the process violates the standards. Honest employees, which most are, use the process and are in no danger.
If information and trust is your business, you take it more seriously than Reuters is.
Oh dear; I laughed so hard I almost fell off my chair! The thought of Reuters having any "strict standards of accuracy" is truly laughable!
Good catch!! That has to be one of the most obviously staged photos yet..... no way a photographer shows up just at the instant a Koran is so conveniently 1/2 burned. A few seconds later and it would all be gone..... a few seconds earlier and he would have been able to rescue the precious Koran. Oh, yes, maybe it is just the serendipity of being a great wartime photographer that allows for an image like that one.
thanks- I threw them all an email
I don't expect to hear back from them.....
;-)
Lots of examples here:
http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/
Reuters is just miffed that they got caught.
Chalk up another one for the blogosphere. The REAL media of the 21st century...and beyond.
The suspicion of doctoring these photos was posted yesterday
on FR. I beleive it was Little green footballs but regardless
the Freeper poster was ahead of everyone else!
Someone needs to photoshop a litle "Will ululate for cash" sign to hang around her neck...either that or put a Heineken in each hand!
A variation of the "limited hangout" technique.
"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."
"Yeahhhh.....that's the ticket!
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