Internet tipster detects a fake Mideast photo
By Katharine Q. Seelye and Julie Bosman The New York Times
Published: August 9, 2006
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2217
Long career of Lebanese photographer Adnan Hajj ended and work being reviewed - editors put new photo guidelines in place
August 9, 2006
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Internet tipster detects a fake Mideast photo |
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By Katharine Q. Seelye and Julie Bosman The New York Times |
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| So far this week, "Adnan Hajj" was the most-searched term on the Technorati Web site, which tracks what is being discussed in the blogosphere. And a rendering of his work was one of the most viewed videos on YouTube. Hajj, a Lebanese photographer based in the Middle East, may not be familiar to many newspaper readers. But thanks to the swift justice of the Internet, he has been charged, tried and convicted of improperly altering photographs he took for the Reuters news service. The pictures ran Saturday on Reuters and were discovered almost instantly by bloggers to have been manipulated. Reuters announced Sunday that it had fired the freelancer. Executives said Tuesday that they were still investigating why they had not discovered the manipulation before the pictures were disseminated to newspapers. The matter has created an uproar on the Internet, where many bloggers see an anti-Israel bias in Hajj's manipulations, which made the damage from Israeli strikes on Beirut appear worse than the original pictures had. One intensified and replicated plumes of smoke from smoldering debris. Another changed an image of an Israeli plane to make it look as if it had dropped three flares instead of one. Reuters officials said they were unaware that any American newspapers had run the two pictures in question, although dozens of papers, including The New York Times, have printed Hajj's pictures over the years. The Times, which ran one of his pictures as recently as Saturday on its front page, has published eight of his Associated Press and Reuters photographs since March 2005. Times editors said a review of those pictures found none that appeared to have been altered. Still, his activities have heightened the anxiety photo editors are experiencing in the age of digital photography, when pictures can be so easily manipulated. These advances, available to the public and to professional photographers alike through Photoshop or similar software, may have made readers more skeptical of what they see. "They doubt the media because they understand what digital photography is," said Torry Bruno, the associate managing editor for photography at The Chicago Tribune. "Everyone who plays with that knows what can be done." As a safeguard, he said, pictures that The Tribune considers for its front page are printed out in color and displayed on the wall of the page one conference room so editors can review them throughout the day. But even as technology makes it easier to manipulate photographs, the blogosphere is making it easier to catch the manipulators. Hajj's pictures ran on the news service on Saturday. The first inkling of a problem came in a tip that morning to Charles Johnson, who runs a Web site called Little Green Footballs. Johnson had been among the first in 2004 to question the authenticity of documents that CBS News used to suggest that President George W. Bush had received favorable treatment in the National Guard. It is not clear where the tipster first saw the photos, but they were available on the Internet. Johnson, who has a background in graphic design, said he could tell the pictures were fake as soon as he saw them. He posted the news on his Web site Saturday at 3:41 p.m. California time (he is based in Los Angeles), which was early Sunday morning in Beirut. The post was spotted by a Reuters photographer in Canada, who notified the editors on duty, and they began an investigation. Paul Holmes, a senior Reuters editor who is also responsible for the agency's standards and ethics, said the agency dealt with the matter within 18 hours. "By the time I checked my e-mail at 10 Sunday morning, we had killed the doctored photo and suspended the photographer," he said. Reuters subsequently stopped using the photographer and has removed the 920 digital photographs of his in its archives. It is reviewing them to see if others have been improperly altered. The agency is also investigating how the photo passed its editing process. "On Saturday, we published 2,000 photos," Holmes said. "It was handled by someone on a very busy day at a more junior level than we would wish for in ideal circumstances." He said this aspect of the problem was the result of "human error," not malicious intent. Hajj told Reuters he was merely trying to remove a speck of dust and fix the lighting in the photos, Holmes said. Several bloggers have contended that Hajj was driven by a political agenda critical of Israel. Holmes said Reuters was trying to contact Hajj but that he was not responding to messages. The agency has tightened its procedures so all photos from the Middle East are now reviewed by senior editors. So far this week, "Adnan Hajj" was the most-searched term on the Technorati Web site, which tracks what is being discussed in the blogosphere. And a rendering of his work was one of the most viewed videos on YouTube. Hajj, a Lebanese photographer based in the Middle East, may not be familiar to many newspaper readers. But thanks to the swift justice of the Internet, he has been charged, tried and convicted of improperly altering photographs he took for the Reuters news service. The pictures ran Saturday on Reuters and were discovered almost instantly by bloggers to have been manipulated. Reuters announced Sunday that it had fired the freelancer. Executives said Tuesday that they were still investigating why they had not discovered the manipulation before the pictures were disseminated to newspapers. The matter has created an uproar on the Internet, where many bloggers see an anti-Israel bias in Hajj's manipulations, which made the damage from Israeli strikes on Beirut appear worse than the original pictures had. One intensified and replicated plumes of smoke from smoldering debris. Another changed an image of an Israeli plane to make it look as if it had dropped three flares instead of one. Reuters officials said they were unaware that any American newspapers had run the two pictures in question, although dozens of papers, including The New York Times, have printed Hajj's pictures over the years. The Times, which ran one of his pictures as recently as Saturday on its front page, has published eight of his Associated Press and Reuters photographs since March 2005. Times editors said a review of those pictures found none that appeared to have been altered. Still, his activities have heightened the anxiety photo editors are experiencing in the age of digital photography, when pictures can be so easily manipulated. These advances, available to the public and to professional photographers alike through Photoshop or similar software, may have made readers more skeptical of what they see. "They doubt the media because they understand what digital photography is," said Torry Bruno, the associate managing editor for photography at The Chicago Tribune. "Everyone who plays with that knows what can be done." As a safeguard, he said, pictures that The Tribune considers for its front page are printed out in color and displayed on the wall of the page one conference room so editors can review them throughout the day. But even as technology makes it easier to manipulate photographs, the blogosphere is making it easier to catch the manipulators. Hajj's pictures ran on the news service on Saturday. The first inkling of a problem came in a tip that morning to Charles Johnson, who runs a Web site called Little Green Footballs. Johnson had been among the first in 2004 to question the authenticity of documents that CBS News used to suggest that President George W. Bush had received favorable treatment in the National Guard. It is not clear where the tipster first saw the photos, but they were available on the Internet. Johnson, who has a background in graphic design, said he could tell the pictures were fake as soon as he saw them. He posted the news on his Web site Saturday at 3:41 p.m. California time (he is based in Los Angeles), which was early Sunday morning in Beirut. The post was spotted by a Reuters photographer in Canada, who notified the editors on duty, and they began an investigation. Paul Holmes, a senior Reuters editor who is also responsible for the agency's standards and ethics, said the agency dealt with the matter within 18 hours. "By the time I checked my e-mail at 10 Sunday morning, we had killed the doctored photo and suspended the photographer," he said. Reuters subsequently stopped using the photographer and has removed the 920 digital photographs of his in its archives. It is reviewing them to see if others have been improperly altered. The agency is also investigating how the photo passed its editing process. "On Saturday, we published 2,000 photos," Holmes said. "It was handled by someone on a very busy day at a more junior level than we would wish for in ideal circumstances." He said this aspect of the problem was the result of "human error," not malicious intent. Hajj told Reuters he was merely trying to remove a speck of dust and fix the lighting in the photos, Holmes said. Several bloggers have contended that Hajj was driven by a political agenda critical of Israel. Holmes said Reuters was trying to contact Hajj but that he was not responding to messages. The agency has tightened its procedures so all photos from the Middle East are now reviewed by senior editors. |
This item is available on the Militant Islam Monitor website, at http://www.militantislammonitor.org/article/id/2217