In attempting to remove the dust from this image, I may inadvertently have altered it slightly
They didn’t mean to do it, of course. They weren’t trying to manipulate public opinion. Oh no. Of course not. Hizballah propaganda? Pshaw. The poor wretch was just trying to remove the dust from the image.
Bridge For Sale Alert: “Reuters drops freelance Lebanese photographer over image,” from Reuters, with thanks to the Constantinopolitan Irredentist:
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.
Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs deserves everyone’s gratitude for this one.