FWIW, I think I just figured out what Rooters was up to. In the undoctored pic, the source of the smoke is clearly coming from one one place/building. In the doctored version that's not as easily to see, especially if you're not examining the pic closely. A cursory glance might make you think that the IDF blew up an entire area of the city. Which was undountedly the intention.
This illustrates my point. "Undoubtedly the intention?" Undoubtedly?
If you're looking for evidence of media ineptitude, you don't have to dig at all. There are plenty of examples of bias. But media bias is like anything else -- if you look hard enough, you'll find it. Whether it's a vision of the Virgin Mary in a water stain on an underpass or a hidden Reuters agenda, if you stare long enough, it will appear.
As I replied to another poster, you can't use the same image to illustrated ham-handed propaganda and subtle manipulation. No one sophisticated enough to tweak the smoke cloud to make the destruction look ten percent larger would let that clumsy photoshop job slip by. Again, I might be a minority of one on this, but I think there's an eagerness to attribute to malice something far more easily explained by incompetence.
You're right. The doctored photo depicts what look to be several sources of thick, black, acrid smoke; the "real" photo indicates only one source of smoke that looks like it's coming from a burning building, not an out-of-control oil fire. It's the difference between precision bombing and laying waste to a city. Propaganda, pure and simple, if terribly done.