Reuters admits altering Beirut photo

[barb162]

Reuters admits altering Beirut photo
First Published: 08.06.06, 10:41
Latest Update: 08.06.06, 20:00

Reuters withdraws photograph of Beirut after Air Force attack after US blogs, photographers point out 'blatant evidence of manipulation.' Reuters' head of PR says in response, 'Reuters has suspended photographer until investigations are completed into changes made to photograph.' Photographer who sent altered image is same Reuters photographer behind many of images from Qana, which have also been subject of suspicions for being staged


A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage.




The photograph showed two very heavy plumes of black smoke billowing from buildings in Beirut after an Air Force attack on the Lebanese capital. Reuters has since withdrawn the photograph from its website, along a message admitting that the image was distorted, and an apology to editors.

snip
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3286966,00.html

[sabra]

1. Reuters admits image of Beirut after IAF strike was doctored

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/747018.html

Reuters admits image of Beirut after IAF strike was doctored

The Reuters news agency admitted Sunday that it had published a doctored photograph of Beirut after an Israel Air Force strike on Saturday morning.

In the original image, thin smoke can be seen rising over the Lebanese capital, but in the second photograph, thick, black smoke can be seen billowing over the buildings.

Reuters said that it has suspended Adnan Hajj, the Lebanese photographer who submitted the image, until further notice. The organization also said that it is investigating the incident.

Claims that the photograph had been doctored was published on a number of blogs, which rushed to prove that the image had been retouched in using the PhotoShop program.


Before and after: The original photograph of Beirut, left, and the retouched version. (Reuters)

[Poll_Blind]

2. DUPE (see inside for link)

Right here.

PB

[sabra]

3. thanks, PB

have been away for a little while...

[OKNancy]

13. that post is in GD, not LBN, but I messed up the combine

anyway - LOL sorry sabra, I combined yours into a duplicate rather than the other way around.

[truthisfreedom]

4. if you ask me, there's no reason to doctor the first photo.

and consider how many b/w photos have been dodged/burned in the darkroom to bring out details over the years before digital photography. this is some new standard they're applying to modern photography... and the doctoring in this photo certainly is nothing like AP removing our favorite thug, crazy Katie Harris, from the bush photo last week.

[bloom]

17. I agree - it makes no sense.

The original is plenty bad enough. The repeating smoke patterns just look ridiculous.

[ksilvas]

35. Oh, it makes perfect sense.

If this photo was doctored (and of course it was, thats obvious, very, very obvious, almost
too obvious).
than all photos are now suspect. That means that the photos from Quana are now suspect.
As are any photos of atrocities committed on Lebanese civilians.
It's a manufactured "out" for anything horrible you might now
see. It's Dan Rather all over again. If one single thing is
somehow suspect than it must all be untrue.
Quite convenient and sadly very effective.
This is a political ploy to hide the truth, by placing
suspicion on the truth.
I'm sorry, but in the middle of one
of the heaviest bombardments, Lebanon has seen in
some time, it seems a bit foolish to believe that
there's some Hezzbollah propaganda film team out staging
events during and all out invasion.
But Hey, maybe I'm just naive.

[VegasWolf]

46. I think you have a very solid point! Cheers! nt

[drm604]

57. I was thinking the same thing.

Looking at those two photos, there's no imaginable reason for doctoring it.

[okieinpain]

63. took the words right out of mouth.

[NotGivingUp]

68. You are absolutely right!!!!

[Epiphany4z]

65. i was going to say

what a crappy photo shop job they did....sheesh I can do better with my little paint shop pro 7 program.

In any case the photo wasn't changed all that much...I don't think the changes really had any effect on the photos impact.

[Realityhack]

55. True

I don't see why. And thas some prity horrid manipulation.

[Name removed]

5. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[billyoc]

6. This is an outrage! I demand a full inquiry.

;)

[don954]

7. you know the neocons are going to paint every photo as doctored

now, right? i wonder if this was a plant.

[Posteritatis]

8. Meh, this one wasn't even doctored well

I've got the Photoshop skills of the cardboard box the software comes bundled in, and I could tell at a glance that picture was faked all to hell. For subtler jobs, it takes some work to prove that they've been edited - but it can be done, even for realistic ones, if you know how to read EXIF data and the like.

Granted, when I look at the undoctored original I don't see that big a difference in what's being depicted, which makes me wonder why that dolt of a "photographer" did this in the first place.

[Zhade]

38. It's so bad a job it's almost like he WANTED it to be discovered.

Well, DU's crack team will no doubt solve the mystery, as it has on a number of occasions.

[Posteritatis]

42. Alternately, he's just a moron. (n/t)

[Zhade]

45. A dishonest one, at that.

I covered both possibilities - either way it's for the best that they dropped him (unless someone else doctored it, but we don't have any info to indicate that) because either way it's wrong.

[bloom]

18. I was wondering that.

In the article it's all about - "oh - people at "littlegreenfootballs" noticed this, blah, blah, blah" - as if the "doctored" image so "hurts" Israel.

It just sounded like nonsense. And it makes no sense that it would have been photoshopped, anyway.

[drm604]

69. Oh, if LGF is involved...

then this could very well have been an attempt to discredit other real untouched photos that may come out in the future. Remember that they were heavily involved in the Dan Rather thing.

[halobeam]

50. IMO, if they take the position that this photo is doctored so all

could be, and none can be trusted, then they can't argue the exact same logic the latest letter the 9/11 widows argued to the commission. They can't have it both ways.

[don954]

58. YES THEY CAN!

logic dosnt compute for neocons! :evilgrin:

[panzerfaust]

9. The first image is horrible enough

Yet it is all too easy to want to 'improve' an image in Photoshop. Especially if it is an image one deeply cares about.

As long as the image is not substantially altered - and by that I mean does not exceed what could be done in camera with filters and with the 'usual' tweaks in the developer and enlarger - I have no problem with it. Actually, as long as the photographer makes it clear that the image was substantially 'photoshopped' I see no difficulty.

The image, which I think no more terrifying in the 'after' than in the 'before' version was clearly, and poorly, manipulated to increase the density and relative area of the smoke.

Had something be done simply along the lines of curves to smoothly adjust the contrast and perhaps free-transform to increase the height of the smoke likely nothing would have been noticed. The clumsy use of the clone tool and a heavy hand on contrast and saturation are what make the manipulation so evident.

A Photoshop artist with an interest could have made it much worse appearing: Flames visible in the buildings, a flight of jet-bombers racing through the smoke etc. Again, as with the New America, the truth is awful enough that it does not require embellishment.


In this case, I would can the photgrapher because s/he substantially altered an image without mention, not only that, but made a poor job of it.

[Warren Stupidity]

10. OK I am having trouble verifying this story.

I cannot find a reuters link to this, either the photo or the admission that it was doctored. The photographer is a massive google hit as his pictures are all over the place. The photoshopped version is so clearly photoshopped that I am starting to suspect that this whole thing is, well BULLSHIT. But I could be wrong.

I did validate that there is a Moira Whittle and that she apparently does run the Reuters pr office, but that site has no statement from reuters on this matter.
http://about.reuters.com/pressoffice/pressreleases/index.asp?cat=3&page=1&perpage=20

[MsMagnificent]

15. Excellent work!

Question everything!

Keep us updated, please!


Edit:

And an obviously biased site, if only for the SOLE links in that "article" were to such blogs as LGF & their ilk (and one right back to their own YNET site!) and NOTHING to the Reuters site!

[bloom]

20. Bullshit would make more sense

than the story as it is.

[barb162]

33. Check post 30

that the Moderator very kindly linked

[maddezmom]

30. Reuter's link

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L06301298.htm

[barb162]

32. Thank you for finding that!

[Zhade]

40. Reuters was right to drop him.

Either he's a plant, or a dishonest photgrapher. Either way, booting him was the right thing to do, if he was the one who did this obvious hack job on the picture.

[Frank Cannon]

11. WTF?!! That's the dumbest doctoring job I've ever seen

I'm pretty much a neophyte when it comes to Photoshopping, but this is just ridiculous. Anyone who's had a minute's experience with the "clone brush" can easily spot the laughable treatment in the second photo.

But what I don't get is why anyone would WANT to retouch the original photo. It looks bad enough as it is. I'm thinking there's a "Rovian" attempt here to try to discredit the REAL bad news of the damage.

[glitch]

12. Really lousy job. He should be fired not just for doctoring but for doing

it so badly.

[Union Thug]

21. Agreed. I could have done better and my photoshop skills are pretty weak.

So what the hell is behind this? It looks way too obvious to take seriously.

And I agree with those who say the original is bad enough. No Photoshop required. It's a disaster.

[poverlay]

23. That's precisely what they're doing. Rove didn't invent this kind of

reverse propaganda. He's not even that good at it. It goes on much more regularly than most people think. There's a good post on it at darkwraith.com.
You might have to search for it, I'm not sure when I saw it, but it says this is exactly what they do. All the time.

[GeorgeGist]

25. This article is a fake...

believe at your own risk.

[maddezmom]

29. Reuters link

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L06301298.htm

[barb162]

34. I think not

[Codeine]

52. Bullshit.

The information's out there, you're just closing your eyes, putting your fingers in your ears and saying "la-la-la-la!"

[Zhade]

37. Oy, what a shitty PS job.

Was this a set-up, or an overzealous photographer sympathetic to the plight of the Lebanese?

Either way, not helpful, and not honest.

[daleo]

54. It is hard to see why anyone would bother altering photo #1

If that doesn't look like a modern city under aerial bombardment, I don't know what does. As Shakespeare said "guilding refined gold, painting the lily".

The darkening of the buildings in the mid-ground just seems like an effect of upping the contrast filter. I don't know about the somewhat more ominous smoke in the background, though. That may have been some pasting (unless the pictures are the same location, but at different times)l.

[Irreverend IX]

60. Damn, that's an ugly clone stamp job.

I'm a journeyman pro photographer, and I could have done a way better job of doctoring the photo than this Reuters guy. The original hardly needed to be altered, and the second version is so blatantly fake I have to wonder whether the photog had just become sickened by the carnage he was seeing and wanted his editor to pull him out. The guys who do the Photoshop Phriday at SomethingAwful.com could have done better. And as another poster said, this seems like a perfect Dan Rather moment for the attackers. Now they have a reason to discredit any accounts of atrocity that come out of Lebanon.

[NVMojo]

14. How embarassing ...

[The Deacon]

16. Have To Admit

When I first saw that photo it looked a little weird - but it never occurred to me it had been photo-shopped. Guess I'm a little naive still about the speed at which it can be done (in the auld days, children, this sort of manipulation took hours, even days.)

[Drum]

19. Gawd, who the hell can we trust anymore? n/t

[truthisfreedom]

22. "Reuters Admits Doctoring" gets ZERO HITS ON NEWS.GOOGLE.COM, TOTAL BS!

this story is a fabrication. Reuters has NOT issued any such press release, as far as I can tell.

this story is propaganda.

[Traveling_Home]

26. google fake +reuters nt

[maddezmom]

28. story is up at Reuters

http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L06301298.htm

[Codeine]

53. Your post is propaganda.

The information's at Reuters. Open your eyes before you make sweeping statements.

[truthisfreedom]

59. hmph. it wasn't there before.

[Name removed]

24. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[maddezmom]

27. Reuters link: Reuters drops freelance Lebanese photographer over image

Reuters drops freelance Lebanese photographer over image
06 Aug 2006 20:06:11 GMT
Source: Reuters



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.

more:http://www.alertnet.org/thenews/newsdesk/L06301298.htm

[barb162]

31. I'm glad Reuters is doing this; being honest and getting the mistake

behind them and not using thatphotographer again

[GemMom]

61. Pretty feeble........

"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.

"Removing dust marks" does not equate repeating wholesale sections of the picture. I'm sorry, but this is just patently a lie.

[Zhade]

36. If true, this is bad. It will make it easier to dismiss...

...real attacks on civilians.

[barb162]

39. Accurate news reporting is never bad IMHO

[Zhade]

41. Oh, I agree with that.

But you must admit that this manipulation will make it easier to dismiss real photos - "oh, Reuters ran a fake one, they're all fake" (even though Reuters rightly dropped the guy).

[Meshuga]

43. Funny

that some people are trying really hard to discredit the story. :-)

Thanks to maddezmom for the link to Reuters!

[Zhade]

47. It's not funny, it's both concerning and understandable.

The photomod is terrible. It's so obvious that it's been doctored, and on the internet - with all its PS dabblers - this was going to be noticed instantly.

So either the photographer is dishonest AND too dumb to realize how obvious the alteration is, or it was a plant. Either way it's bad, because now the default position with regards to photos from Lebanon will be "oh, they're all faked", and real events might be dismissed as fake more easily.

That's a loss for truth and for honest journalism, and I can understand why people would hope it's a set-up, not to mention suspect such thanks to the terrible, blatant nature of the modification.

Whatever happened, even if exactly as described, this isn't good.

[Tempest]

44. Deceptive and incorrect article heading

Reuters didn't admit to altering the photo, they admitted a photographer altered the photo without their knowledge.

Can't expect a pro-Israel web site to get it right though.

[Zhade]

51. Good point.

NT!

[savemefromdumbya]

48. Thankgod for blogs

[fjc]

49. Reuters did not admit anything of the sort.

Reuters did not alter anything.

[daleo]

56. Some other work by Adnan Hajj

Here are a few references of some of his other work. He doesn't strike me as a "plant" - just a photojournalist who unnecessarily "painted the lily" in the photo under discussion. Right-wing bloggers are using this to discredit all his other work, though:
----------

Ambulances arrive with the bodies of Monday's bomb attack victims as thousands of supporters of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri gather for the funeral in Beirut, Lebanon Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2005. Hariri was assassinated in a bomb attack Monday, which killed up to 18 people.(AP Photo/Adnan Hajj Ali)

Family members, including Saaddin Hariri, center, son of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafik Hariri, carry Hariri's flag-draped coffin upon arrival for his funeral in Beirut, Lebanon Wednesday, Feb. 16, 2005. Hariri was assassinated in a car bomb attack Monday.(AP Photo/Adnan Hajj Ali)

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/archive/index.php/t-35364.html

U.S. Marines help U.S. citizens during an evacuation from Beirut to Cyprus at Marina Debayeh in the north of Beirut July 21, 2006. (REUTERS/Adnan Hajj (LEBANON))

http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/07/21/helicopters_pluck_americans_from_beirut/

I found a picture of "chemical Ali" credited to this photographer.

Lebanese rescuers cover a body that was uncovered in the rubble
of a bombed house in the south Lebanese village of Srifa
(REUTERS/Adnan Hajj)

http://www.zonaeuropa.com/20060803_1.htm


IN THE NEWS: Lebanese journalists watch a speech of Hizbollah leader Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah in the Beirut suburbs, July 29,2006. Nasrallah claimed on Saturday last that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice aimed to impose conditions on Lebanon and to serve Israeli interests during her recent diplomatic mission to the war-ravaged region. (Reuters/Adnan Hajj)

http://www.newswatch.in/?p=5424


Photography: REUTERS/ADNAN HAJJ, courtesy www.alertnet.org

http://www.cafod.org.uk/news_and_events/emergencies/middle_east_emergency/crisis_deepens_2006_07_26

[Igel]

67. His rep's toast.

There are a few other fraudulent photos out there; it's really hard to quibble with them. As bad as the photoshopped Beirut photo in the OP.

The best that can be said for Adnan is that he has extensive freedom to move in Hezbollah controlled areas, and extensive access to Hezb folk. They like him.

He might be making sensationalistic photos because of his career. But since the photos also are part of a PR war, he's unlikely to be a naive player in this. If people give their life and soul for Allah's Help, what's a few photos?

Liked by Hezb, producing photos that produce anti-Israeli fervor, and being willing to lie and fake photos.

He's credible how?

[daleo]

70. The same could be said of much of the stuff we see on CNN, etc.

The propaganda war is always out there. Some biases are huge, some are more subtle. Think of the scary backdrops, chilling music, etc. that CNN comes up with for each new war. Or the constant repetition of a clip of North Korean technicians (which we are to assume are building atom bombs) or masked fighters running through old tires with AK-47s.

People do it for Allah, Jehovah, Christ, their career, socialism, capitalism, whatever. I am not surprised that a Lebanese photographer would show some bias towards his own people. Part of it is natural sympathy, part is access. Hezbollah may give him favored access, but Israel does the same for networks and media they like.

But it is pointless to throw the baby out with the bathwater, and say that nothing can be believed because of some minor alterations to juice up a photo (that showed plenty of destruction to begin with). That goes for both sides. As observers, we have to always maintain a critical focus.

[Endangered Specie]

62. You smell that, I smell framing...

this kind of thing works both ways.

Rove aint the first guy to know the best way to smear the other side is to make it look like the other side is smearing you.

[PBass]

64. Fire the Reuters photo editors, who approved the photo

and uploaded it to their website. They are blind.

This whole thing smells fishy.

Say, I bet those Lebanese are faking all those dead civilians too.
:sarcasm:

[readmoreoften]

66. It's altered by someone who is barely competent in photo editing to boot.

Someone likes the clone stamp.