One of the stories I covered at DemBloggers during the week before this blog opened was the manipulation of photos from Lebanon by a photographer who has subsequently been fired by Reuters. Credit for this actually goes to the right wing blogosphere (here and here). While Little Green Footballs is not one of our favorite sites, they were not deserving of death threats for exposing this photoghrapher. This story is also interesting due to way in which it spread from the blogosphere to the mainstream media. There were several news stories on it last week, as well as today’s op-ed in the Rocky Mountain News.
Assuming the accusations of manipulation are true Reuters was certainly right to pull the pictures. If true, LGF deserves credit for exposing this, but hopefully this does not turn into an all out right wing attack on the credibility of the news media.
My stories on this at DemBloggers are under the fold.
Right Blogosphere Exposes Reuters Alteration of Photo
Posted on Sun Aug 6th, 2006 at 10:18:41 AM EST
Reuters Withdraws All Photos By Freelancer
Posted on Mon Aug 7th, 2006 at 12:53:46 PM EST
In response to the alteration of photographs I previously commented on, Reuters has removed all photographs from the photographer from its database:
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.
The stat counter is interesting at the moment. One third of those reading the site right now are from Europe–Finland, France, and Holland. The world wide web is really amazing. I put up a blog on Wednesday morning and people from literally all over the world have visited.