LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - 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.
Removing the images from the Reuters database excludes them from future sale.
Reuters ended its relationship with Hajj on Sunday after it found that a photograph he had taken of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike on suburban Beirut had been manipulated using Photoshop software to show more and darker smoke rising from buildings.
An immediate enquiry began into Hajj’s other work.
It established on Monday that a photograph of an Israeli F-16 fighter over Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon and dated Aug 2, had also been doctored to increase the number of flares dropped by the plane from one to three.
“Manipulating photographs in this way is entirely unacceptable and contrary to all the principles consistently held by Reuters throughout its long and distinguished history. It undermines not only our reputation but also the good name of all our photographers,” Szlukovenyi said.
“This doesn’t mean that every one of his 920 photographs in our database was altered. We know that not to be the case from the majority of images we have looked at so far but we need to act swiftly and in a precautionary manner.”
The two altered photographs were among 43 that Hajj filed directly to the Reuters Global Pictures Desk since the start of the conflict on July 12 rather than through an editor in Beirut, as was the case with the great majority of his images.
Filing drills have been tightened in Lebanon and only senior staff will now edit pictures from the Middle East on the Global Pictures Desk, with the final check undertaken by the Editor-in-Charge, Reuters said.
Hajj worked for Reuters as a non-staff contributing photographer from 1993 until 2003 and again since April 2005. Most of his work was in sports photography, much of it outside Lebanon.
Hajj was not in Beirut on Monday and was not responding to calls. He told Reuters on Sunday that the image of the Israeli air strike on Beirut had dust marks which he had wanted to remove.
Questions about the accuracy of the photograph arose after it appeared on news Web sites on Saturday.
Several blogs, including a number which accuse the media of distorted coverage of the Middle East conflict, said the photograph had been doctored.
[ Just yesterday evening, the blog www.littlegreenfootballs.com found a *second* Reuters photo, taken by Hajj, on a totally different aspect of the war, that had also been doctored. One doctored photo could be a fluke. But not two doctored photos on two different subjects.
So Reuters has been forced to pull everything Hajj photographed. Adnan Hajj, meet Jayson Blair. :-) ]
-- Steven D. Litvintchouk Email: sdlit...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
Steven L. wrote: > LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - 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.
It's called psyops.
Wasn't the US gov't paying Republican supporters to basically the same thing. It was revealed a few years ago bush was implementing a ministry of disinformation to the world. That includes us too.
If the story's true than good for Reuters. One less lie floating in the world.
>> LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - 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.
> It's called psyops.
> Wasn't the US gov't paying Republican supporters to basically the same > thing. It was revealed a few years ago bush was implementing a ministry > of disinformation to the world. That includes us too.
> If the story's true than good for Reuters. One less lie floating in the > world.
I really liked the doctored "Made In China" boxes that magically had "Made In USA" put on them for a backdrop at a Bush rally in St. Louis.
Oddly -- I don't recall Steven L. or any of the other bots complaining about how that was wrong....
>>> LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - 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.
>> It's called psyops.
>> Wasn't the US gov't paying Republican supporters to basically the same >> thing. It was revealed a few years ago bush was implementing a ministry >> of disinformation to the world. That includes us too.
>> If the story's true than good for Reuters. One less lie floating in the >> world.
> I really liked the doctored "Made In China" boxes that magically had "Made > In USA" put on them for a backdrop at a Bush rally in St. Louis.
> Oddly -- I don't recall Steven L. or any of the other bots complaining > about how that was wrong....
I do not have a link but I seem to remember a picture, possibly from a Bush rally also, where the backdrop audience was created by replicating a small group of faces ... not much fuss about it either.
Reuters has fired Lebanese freelance photographer Adnan Hajj after he transmitted at least two photographs from Lebanon that were doctored to make Israeli attacks seem more dramatic.
The news agency said Monday it is investigating Hajj's other work and has withdrawn all of Hajj's photos, about 920 images, from its archives as a precaution.
Hajj's career with Reuters unraveled Saturday after Reuters sent its subscribers one of Hajj's images of smoke rising from the Beirut skyline. The image, which appeared on several news web sites, had been doctored in Adobe Photoshop to show more smoke billowing higher into the sky.
The manipulation was so ham-handed that popular political blogs, beginning with Little Green Footballs, spotted it almost immediately. The bloggers used it to fuel long-running accusations that Reuters's news coverage is politically biased.
> >>> LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - 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.
> >> It's called psyops.
> >> Wasn't the US gov't paying Republican supporters to basically the same > >> thing. It was revealed a few years ago bush was implementing a ministry > >> of disinformation to the world. That includes us too.
> >> If the story's true than good for Reuters. One less lie floating in the > >> world.
> > I really liked the doctored "Made In China" boxes that magically had "Made > > In USA" put on them for a backdrop at a Bush rally in St. Louis.
> > Oddly -- I don't recall Steven L. or any of the other bots complaining > > about how that was wrong....
> I do not have a link but I seem to remember a picture, possibly from a Bush > rally also, where the backdrop audience was created by replicating a small > group of faces ... not much fuss about it either.
Yeah, the rightwingers are crowing about this one, because they are confronted with much worse UNDOCTORED photos of broken children.
The problem is that just as a picture proves nothing, the proof that a picture was doctored by one photojournalist in a good cause is of equal logical weight close to zero.
No-one in his right mind reasons from a single picture. I was teaching Edsger Wybe Dijkstra's proof of a generalization of the Pythagorean theorem today, and the point of the proof (which proves something that mathematicians already know) was that replacing the PICTURE of a right triangle with logical symbolism including equivalence gets a useful result for ALL triangles.
For the same reason, we conclude that Israel is a Fascist regime not from any one picture but from the text of its repeated violations of international law.
Steven L. wrote: > LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - 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.
> Removing the images from the Reuters database excludes them from > future sale.
> Reuters ended its relationship with Hajj on Sunday after it found > that a photograph he had taken of the aftermath of an Israeli air strike > on suburban Beirut had been manipulated using Photoshop software to show > more and darker smoke rising from buildings.
> An immediate enquiry began into Hajj's other work.
> It established on Monday that a photograph of an Israeli F-16 > fighter over Nabatiyeh, southern Lebanon and dated Aug 2, had also been > doctored to increase the number of flares dropped by the plane from one > to three.
> "Manipulating photographs in this way is entirely unacceptable and > contrary to all the principles consistently held by Reuters throughout > its long and distinguished history. It undermines not only our > reputation but also the good name of all our photographers," Szlukovenyi > said.
> "This doesn't mean that every one of his 920 photographs in our > database was altered. We know that not to be the case from the majority > of images we have looked at so far but we need to act swiftly and in a > precautionary manner."
> The two altered photographs were among 43 that Hajj filed directly > to the Reuters Global Pictures Desk since the start of the conflict on > July 12 rather than through an editor in Beirut, as was the case with > the great majority of his images.
> Filing drills have been tightened in Lebanon and only senior staff > will now edit pictures from the Middle East on the Global Pictures Desk, > with the final check undertaken by the Editor-in-Charge, Reuters said.
> Hajj worked for Reuters as a non-staff contributing photographer > from 1993 until 2003 and again since April 2005. Most of his work was in > sports photography, much of it outside Lebanon.
> Hajj was not in Beirut on Monday and was not responding to calls. > He told Reuters on Sunday that the image of the Israeli air strike on > Beirut had dust marks which he had wanted to remove.
> Questions about the accuracy of the photograph arose after it > appeared on news Web sites on Saturday.
> Several blogs, including a number which accuse the media of > distorted coverage of the Middle East conflict, said the photograph had > been doctored.
> [ > Just yesterday evening, the blog www.littlegreenfootballs.com found a > *second* Reuters photo, taken by Hajj, on a totally different aspect of > the war, that had also been doctored. One doctored photo could be a > fluke. But not two doctored photos on two different subjects.
> So Reuters has been forced to pull everything Hajj photographed. Adnan > Hajj, meet Jayson Blair. :-) > ]
> -- > Steven D. Litvintchouk > Email: sdlit...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net > Remove the NOSPAM before replying to me.
On Mon, 07 Aug 2006 15:21:31 GMT, "Steven L." <sdlit...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted someone who said :
> LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - 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.
Come on. Where is the url from reuters.com for your tempest in a Tea Pot.
As usual your headline lies. Your body describes two doctored photos, not fakes. A fake is something totally made up.
Further, you have been blaming Reuters, when it is a "freelance Lebanese photographer" doing the touch ups.
Perhaps you recall the story of the ad where a touch up artist inadvertently added an extra engine to a Boeing plane.
> On Mon, 07 Aug 2006 15:21:31 GMT, "Steven L." ><sdlit...@earthlinkNOSPAM.net> wrote, quoted or indirectly quoted > someone who said :
>> LONDON, Aug 7 (Reuters) - 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.
> Come on. Where is the url from reuters.com for your tempest in a Tea > Pot.
I know that you live under a rock, but this is incredible, even for you.
|
