Once again Cox & Forkum hit the nail on the head.
(Title of this cartoon refers to this famous quote: The first casualty when war comes is truth)
This is a hoot. Reuters photographers are photoshopping images and publishing them as news. Bloggers catch them, professional photographers out them, and this is all we get by way of an explanation?
Mideast Conflict on Yahoo! News Photos
PICTURE KILL FOR LBN20 TRANSMITTED AT APPROXIMATELY 1408GMT ON AUGUST 5, 2006. PHOTO EDITING SOFTWARE WAS IMPROPERLY USED ON THIS IMAGE. A CORRECTED VERSION WILL IMMEDIATELY FOLLOW THIS ADVISORY. PLEASE REMOVE THE IMAGE FROM YOUR SYSTEMS. WE ARE SORRY FOR ANY INCONVENIENCE. REUTERS LBN20 Smoke billows from burning buildings destroyed during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut’s suburbs August 5, 2006. Many buildings were flattened during the attack. REUTERS/Adnan Hajj (LEBANON) REUTERS NEWS PICTURES
It’s hard to argue that there’s no media bias when the international wire services are publishing blatantly faked work as news. It makes one wonder what “proper” use of photo editing software is in regards to the news… the ones that don’t get caught?
LGF has more.
Michelle Malkin points out this ironic Reuters official policy:
Our policy is to send news to our customers only after scrutiny by a group of production editors who ensure quality standards are maintained across all our news services. When we get something wrong, our policy is to be honest about errors and to correct them promptly and clearly.
There’s a word for this, and it isn’t news. It’s propaganda. What’s worse is that this discovery could just be the tip of a really big iceberg. It’s frightening to realise just how much we may hvae been lied to.