Thursday, April 03, 2003

Photoshopped news
Yahoo! News - LA Times sacks photographer for manipulating war photo
The Los Angeles Times, one of the most respected US daily newspapers, said it had sacked a staff photographer working in Iraq (news - web sites) for altering a war photo.
The Times said in an editor's note that it had fired Brian Walski after he admitted electronically manipulating a picture showing a British soldier directing Iraqi civilians to take cover from a firefight.
The altering of images is strictly forbidden under of code of journalistic ethics.
"After publication, it was noticed that several civilians in the background appear twice," the paper said.

Oh, yeah, I'm sure it was done with honest intent. The end image was undoubtedly true in essence.

That doesn't matter. Just as well to put a clown nose on President Bush. (Probably a bad example: Some people think that's appropriate.) A faked picture is a faked picture, and each one casts doubt on all news photographs, and all reporting. If you have no faith in what you see in the newspaper, it becomes no more than a fish wrapper. Why, next thing you know, reporters will be claiming to be someplace they weren't.

Here are the photos in question.

Speaking of photos, here is Instapundit's collection of links to satellite images of Baghdad from Space Imaging Eurasia.

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