Reuters withdraws all photos by Lebanese freelance

Reuters ^ | 07 Aug 2006 | Reuters

[PajamaTruthMafia]

LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - Reuters withdrew all 920 photographs by a freelance Lebanese photographer from its database on Monday after an urgent review of his work showed he had altered two images from the conflict between Israel and the armed group Hizbollah.

Global Picture Editor Tom Szlukovenyi called the measure precautionary but said the fact that two of the images by photographer Adnan Hajj had been manipulated undermined trust in his entire body of work.

"There is no graver breach of Reuters standards for our photographers than the deliberate manipulation of an image," Szlukovenyi said in a statement.

"Reuters has zero tolerance for any doctoring of pictures and constantly reminds its photographers, both staff and freelance, of this strict and unalterable policy."

The news and information agency announced the decision in an advisory note to its photo service subscribers. The note also said Reuters had tightened editing procedures for photographs from the conflict and apologised for the case.

Removing the images from the Reuters database excludes them from future sale.

Reuters ended its relationship with Hajj on Sunday after it found that a photograph he had taken of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on suburban Beirut had been manipulated using Photoshop software to show more and darker smoke rising from buildings.

An immediate enquiry began into Hajj's other work.

It established on Monday that a photograph of an Israeli F-16 fighter over Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon and dated Aug 2, had also been doctored to increase the number of flares dropped by the plane from one to three.

"Manipulating photographs in this way is entirely unacceptable and contrary to all the principles consistently held by Reuters throughout its long and distinguished history. It undermines not only our reputation but also the good name of all our photographers," Szlukovenyi said.

"This doesn't mean that every one of his 920 photographs in our database was altered. We know that not to be the case from the majority of images we have looked at so far but we need to act swiftly and in a precautionary manner."

The two altered photographs were among 43 that Hajj filed directly to the Reuters Global Pictures Desk since the start of the conflict on July 12 rather than through an editor in Beirut, as was the case with the great majority of his images.

Filing drills have been tightened in Lebanon and only senior staff will now edit pictures from the Middle East on the Global Pictures Desk, with the final check undertaken by the Editor-in-Charge, Reuters said.

Hajj worked for Reuters as a non-staff contributing photographer from 1993 until 2003 and again since April 2005. Most of his work was in sports photography, much of it outside Lebanon.

Hajj was not in Beirut on Monday and was not responding to calls. He told Reuters on Sunday that the image of the Israeli air strike on Beirut had dust marks which he had wanted to remove.

Questions about the accuracy of the photograph arose after it appeared on news Web sites on Saturday.

Several blogs, including a number which accuse the media of distorted coverage of the Middle East conflict, said the photograph had been doctored.

[gcruse]

An individual disclosing troop movements, national security secrets? You bet. Death penalty for media? Who would you kill? The reporter or the editor or the publisher or the printer?

[weegee]

Nothing new here. Old communist trick. The practice continues to this day. (see Alain Jaubert's "Making People Disappear: An Amazing Chronicle of Photographic Deception" which covers Nazi Germany, the Soviet Union, Fidel's Cuba, and 1960s Vietnam)

I was suprised to learn that Time Magazine doctored the photo of the dead soldier being dragged through the streets of Somalia. It seems that his genitalia was exposed. They were of the mind that they could print a photo of a dead soldier being dragged through the streets like a trophy (despite it not showing the same respect the DUmass media claims to be showing in supressing ALL photos of dead people from the 9-11 attacks) BUT they could not show his exposed anatomy.

The Time Magazine manipulation can be seen in this book:

Underexposed - Pictures Can Lie And Liars Can Use Pictures (Edited by Colin Jacobson)

[weegee]

Interviewing POW soldiers posing as a Red Cross nurse and taking their statements out of context when that same "nurse" sat behind the mike as a Nazi broadcaster.

Morale is part of the whole "aid and comfort" thing.

[gcruse]

You can lend aid and comfort to the enemy by answering polls with a 'yes' when asked if we should, say, pull out of Iraq. Aid and comfort is too elastic for our purposes here, I think.

Freedom of the press isn't suspended in wartime and along with that goes a certain amount of perfidy, or so it seems. So I guess my answer to your original question is that applying the death penalty to media requires extreme actions, not just aid and comfort.

[weegee]

"Journalists" who are there on the ground to manipulate reporting (staging unrepresentative photos and even manipulating images) are doing far more than ISLAMming a poll on the war.

Was Goebbels a war criminal?

[gcruse]

Goebbels? I've answered your serious question. If you're going into la-la land, at least tell me what's your agenda. Is it that you think Israel should deliberately kill the photogs and reporters in Lebanon?

[PajamaTruthMafia]

bttt

[tobyhill]

I don't have to clarify anything but if I meant killed I would have said "killed"! I personally dislike the MSM with a passion and if one of them happened to get killed I just hope they know Jesus but I won't be shedding any tears.

[ConservativeMan55]

bttt

[tobyhill]

I have a fairly good digital camera and whatever I download is what I get. My point isn't what makes a good photographer because these people are supposed to be professionals which makes it more unreasonable why they would use software to adjust (distort) their photos unless all they're trying to do is sensationalize the scene.

[glorgau]

Either this woman is the unluckiest multiple home-owner in Beirut, or something isn't quite right.

Perhaps she is married to the "green helmet guy"?

[Gone GF]

"I have a fairly good digital camera and whatever I download is what I get."

That's not how it works in the real world of photojournalism. Even in the caveman days before digital and software, photographers used various techniques to change lighting or contrast. As far as I know, that's always been considered acceptable. Adding or taking away objects is not acceptable.

[weegee]

Is Hezbollah a political leadership or a terrorist organization?

Alligning with terrorists is what these "journalists" are doing.

I am asking (in citing Goebbels) that one does not have to pull a trigger or compromise troops to engage in horrific acts.

You seem willing to permit anything in a "free press".

Read up on WWII. Was the press too restricted?

[tobyhill]

Maybe it's not how it works in real life photojournalism but it's also obvious that they've taken minor photo correcting tools to the extreme, where no one knows what they're really getting.

[gcruse]

I'm asking you what your point is. Should Israel deliberately target the press?

[MagnoliaB]

"But pictures of staged events are still acceptable."

I was thinking the same thing.

[weegee]

Changing contrast in the darkroom was necessary because making a negative used to be only half the process. The other half was making a good print.

Then came reproduction of those images in print which meant adjust contrast for visibility in a newspaper.

The Communists would regularly add or remove figures depending on their standing with the Party.

Intent has been altered before. I offered up 2 books with many examples.

With digital photography, this sort of thing happens more frequently in Western press than it used to happen with images from film.

And it seems to be happening more in the arena of war than in other images.

The LA Times was caught splicing 2 photos together to make a composite image (some figures from one, a different pose of a soldier in another). The resulting image looked like a US soldier (with a rifle) was "halting" a refugee and his son.

And then there was this othe LA Times staffer, a female journalist/activist who has tried to spin events and manipulate perception.

Undercover Photographer: L.A. Times staffer crosses a line, again. [Hugh Hewitt mentioned] (www.NationalReview.com ^ | 05/14/2002)

Little critical attention has been given to the recent antics of Los Angeles Times staff photographer Carolyn Cole, who on May 2 joined a group of "peace activists" who had clandestinely entered Bethlehem's Church of the Nativity, in solidarity with the Palestinian militants holding dozens of civilians and clergymen hostage.

Upon her arrival inside the holy site, Cole took on the dual role of photographer and reporter for the Times, offering first-person accounts from within the church.

The Times, often accused of carrying an anti-Israeli grudge, confirmed many of its critics' suspicions by printing Cole's blatantly pro-Palestinian church dispatches. Cole even noted that she felt safer with the Palestinian militants than she did with the Israelis. (A collection of her like-minded photos from inside the church appear in this week's Time.)

And prior to that she'd been arrested in Florida when she attempted to start a "Cuban" riot in Florida by throwing rocks at police when Cubans were protesting Reno's abduction of Ellian.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carolyn_Cole

[weegee]

I asked if there was anything the press could do that would warrant a death penalty.

You made allowances for espionage (troop deployment, national security, etc.).

I say siding with the enemy (and Hezbollah is a CRIMINAL organization) can put someone on the firing line as well. You don't seem to be willing to go there.

[gcruse]

The death penalty for "siding with the enemy"? Nope. I don't go there. I'll side with whom I please.

[weegee]

So Johnny Walker did no wrong?

"Pray" that sedition laws are never written again.