Reuters Beirut Photo

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1154525816599&pagename=JPost%

2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2006/08/doctored_reuters_photo_of_beir.php

Another link:

<A HREF = http://tinyurl.com/jh4e7> Reuters fires freelance phoographer over doctored

image</a><P>Any comments?

Quite wrong, but also somewhat silly to spend all that time adding smoke to an image when

the casualty figures tell the whole story anyway.

 

I'd hope that any comments that were made were restricted to the ethics of the

photographer, rather than provoking a racist tirade or a rant about the 'liberal media', but I'm

not hopeful.

The Reuters photographer made a stupid mistake!!! Like Michael said, why did he even spend time on adding smoke to the image? Unethical and stupid!!!

And the Reuters photo editors made a stupider mistake. No excuse. It's so damn obviously faked, I would serioulsy wonder whether someone overlooked it's glaring deficiencies just to promote some personal/corporate/media agenda obviously biased against certain parties.

 

That's about as far as I can go w/o getting into non-PC territory.

Reuters has now pulled all 920 pictures the photog had supplied it that are in its database. The blogs are having a great time finding this guy's photoshopped pics. Maybe he could email Dan Rather for some advice?

Even this piece of news is politics. This piece of news is putting all the photos and news from Lebanon now in doubt, and yet, it is very very insignificant compared to what happens there between the two terrorist groups (or what ever you want to call them depending from which way you are looking).<p>

The really newsworthy fact remains: The price of these military plays of boys are being paid by civilians, children, women. And the world just watches by. The USA is on its knees in front of Israel and EU is purely eloquent over an expensive dinner. Meanwhile the Hizbollahs get there weapons from who knows where.<p>

The photographer was an irresponsible idiot and Reuters managed to make the most of it.

There is another level to this story - it is the reponsibility of the journalists and in this case - photojournalists. I find it rather unsettling that a number of "iconic" shots from this conflict are suspect as having been stage-set by Hezbollah and then willingly photographed by the shock value hungry "photojournalists". It appears that that Western media is a willing participant in this media war (in this particular case orchestrated by the Hezbollah).

 

A number of journalists have openly gone on record to say that there are special media hours as designated by Hezbollah. It appears that photographers and videographers are driven around the spots of Israel inflicted destruction and (often the same) rescue workers drag out the dead bodies from the wreckage for the media people to make photos and videos of. While the dead bodies is a reality, the portrayal of them is a gross distortion of this reality. Furthermore, whatever high motives the photographers may have in doing this, I think that such use of dead children bodies is disgusting.

 

It is always a fine line between "true" photo reportage and "dramatization". Also there are many shades of grey in this. It all starts with photographers wanting to get a more dramatic effect - asking the subjects to move in a more dramatic ligthing, or stand still or elliciting more emotion. You can use composition and construct you photographs to prove a point. But what appears to be happening right now is a step too far.

 

OK - one can argue that this has always been the case with "Photojournalism" - remember the discussions about R. Cappa Civil War shot etc. Even so, this is a useful reminder every time I watch TV news or read the newspaper. Come to think, I prefer to read stuff that uses no pictures at all or uses pictures sparingly.

As why did he do it: ican think of two possible compelling reasons: financial gain from

increased sales and possibly his politics.

 

Mr . Hajj is now developing quite a reputation for faking photos and miscaptioning photos

see:

 

http://www.mediabistro.com/unbeige/photo/more_smoke_from_hajj_41535.asp

 

and

 

http://theshapeofdays.com/2006/08/another_faked_photo_by_adnan_hajj.html

 

for an iamge analysis of that faked and deliberately miscaptioned photo from Mr . Hajj.

 

As a result of being caught perpetrating these frauds, Reuters on Monday has decided to

withdraw Mr .Hajj's entire archive from distribution:

 

http://tinyurl.com/moo3k

 

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."

 

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.

I'm a former non-editorial employee of Reuters, so have some residual loyalty to the company (great place to work - they were very good to me).

 

That said, their response so far has been largely the right one with one critical exception. The decision to cut Hajj loose and to remove all of his photos was certainly correct. What he obviously did with the smoke photo and the fighter/flair photo discredits all other photos he's submitted.

 

At a minimum, Reuters MUST take one more corrective step. The photo editor who passed on the smoke-doctored photo has to be fired. Anyone purporting to be a professional who could not spot such a ham-handed, obvious attempt at cloning can't be retained.

 

In addition, (and I realize this is unlikely) I'd like to see Reuters post all of Hajj's photos on a separate site for general examination. I've already seen photos of his anazyzed in the last 24 hours (one sequence from the Qasmiya bridge) that, given obvious inconsistencies, certainly appear to have been staged - a far worse offense than the cloning that's already been uncovered. It would be a welcomed cleansing exercise to have all of Hajj's photos subjected to general scrutiny so that other, possibly overlooked, examples of the same thing can be identified.

 

As to motive, Ellis has it correct. There are only really two possible motives here, money and ideology. From the two cloned photos, it's hard to conclude that the changes Hajj made would have resulted in their being any more salable. Particularly in the case of the smoke-cloned shot, the picture was fine in its original form. I'm forced to lean toward ideological motivation in that he was trying to make the destruction look worse than than it was.

 

In any case, if I were a Reuters-employed news photographer, I'd be pretty damned upset right now. Hajj has severly damaged the credibility of all of their work. No Reuters news photo (from Lebanon, at least) will be taken at face value for quite a while.

DOCTORING IMAGES is certainly nothing new. Right now we have a "touched up" POW being displayed, yet other POW members are stampeding over each other lavishing praise on an image that they have not bothered to look at critically. (Which I thought the POW was for) Initially, the poster stated that nothing was done to the image, then in another posting admits that the "scanner had eliminated the high tones". A thorough examination of the image shows that he used the rectangle tool numerous times to trim out sections of the image. Photojournalism, Photographism, double standards, dishonesty, whatever, its all around us all of the time.

That is: Other photo.net members.

John, I'm not following you. Can you link to the photo you're referencing?

Current POW this week.

John, theres a HUGE difference between a POW photo and an image that purports to be a product of journalism. No one is relying on a POW as a representation of anything more than the photographer's idea of art or beauty. If the shooter says the image is non-manipulated when in fact it has been, shame on him, but no one is harmed.

 

However, when a photojournalist publishes a photo that is advertised as an accurate representation of an actual event, it is a journalistic sin akin to plagiarism. It is a false record of an event that didn't happen, even if the alterations are as minor as those foolishly sumitted by the Reuters photographer. That is why the uproar and reaction to these events are so intense.

Dan, to a certain extent, I agree fully with you. And admittedly the situations are entirely different. But my feeling is that behind the scenes, so to speak, the rationalization is the same. Its OK to do something that's not really ethical, but as long as nobody questions it, DO it.

Making it a big issue that "Hizbollah has staged" is quite subjective considering that the other side is doing the same in much more international way. Especially the US news agencys seem to give very one sided view of things. BBC recently made a study of their Palestine journalism and found that even they were biased towards Israel.<p>

Photo manipulation has no place in this context. However, one rotten apple does not make all apples rotten. Cynical perhaps, but showing the casualties is normal war PR especially for the underdog. If there is a 10:1 ratio its just rational to seek sympathy.

Juha!

 

>>BBC recently made a study of their Palestine journalism and found that even they were biased towards Israel.

 

Thank you for guiding us to the report. I did not know of its existence. As BBC radio World Serevice is essentially my only source of information, this is quite interesting to me as a consumer. Have you read the whole report? Or only news coverage of the report? For eveyone's benefit here is a link:

 

http://www.bbcgovernors.co.uk/docs/rev_israelipalestinian.html

 

>> Making it a big issue that "Hizbollah has staged" is quite subjective considering that the other side is doing the same in much more international way. Especially the US news agencys seem to give very one sided view of things.

 

I am not making an issue about Hezbollah or Israelis. I think they are completely right to stage whatever PR actions they deem necessary and find apropriate. It is the duty of the photojournalists to decide how far they go along with this and where their personal and professional integrity starts and ends.

 

>>Photo manipulation has no place in this context. However, one rotten apple does not make all apples rotten. Cynical perhaps, but showing the casualties is normal war PR especially for the underdog. If there is a 10:1 ratio its just rational to seek sympathy.

 

I am not concerned about Mr Hajj's doctored images. To me his motive appears to be quite clear and quite frankly I do not think hs actions are so damaging to photojournalist community or to the Lebanese cause. I am more concerned about the possibility that images like these

 

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/4640/388/1600/qana%20029.jpg

 

have been stage-set specially for the need of photo corps. It is quite conceivable that the photo journalists are on the side of the underdog and after wondering what they as humans can do to make things better they decide that a little "half-true" is OK and agree to hop along a little stage-setting. If it really is so, then I think it is a wrong decision. Here is why:

- If it turns out that these pictures are really "manipulated" (in a sense that the white tee-shirt man and the green helmet are really Hezbollah propaganda workers and that the "dead body run" was completely unnecessary and staged only for the benefit of the video- and photographers that were driven en masse there), it will do the "cause" more harm than good.

- How do I know that the photographers are on the "right" side next time?

 

Please, understand that none of what I write is to denigrate the suffering of the Lebanese people or to somehow justify Israel's actions. I just do not buy the argument that anything goes to make a wrong go right.

Didzis, I agree with you on all counts.

Answering late, I have the advantage to post a much up-to-date link about this phenomenon based on the money/fame interest of the photographers and on the need of the News agencies to produce the news that their clients ask for:

http://www.zombietime.com/reuters_photo_fraud/

About BBC, as an Israeli seeing BBC, CNN, FOX, French, Suisse, Italian, Israeli and Arab TV, I may say that news from BBC are deformed, partial...but much funny is to read someone else about BBC:

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/749291.html

'Please, understand that none of what I write is to denigrate the suffering of the Lebanese people or to somehow justify Israel's actions. I just do not buy the argument that anything goes to make a wrong go right.'

 

No comment about Hezbollah firing thousands of rockets intentionally at civilian targets or the 1 million displaced Israelis. Sorry not more Israelis were killed to somehow even up the figures, it wasn't for any lack of trying by Hezbollah. Your statement is as unbaised as the BBC is. An internal report shows they are unbaised. Now that is really convincing.

What is amazing it is not that the photographers distort their material, but that in a democratic country the News Agencies as BBC create (deform) for rating reasons an "information" that will satisfy their public.

The photographer provides the means only. He is in a poor and competitive trade.

...and about suffering:the terror attacks made both people, Lebanese and Israeli, to suffer. That we know here in Israel the price that innocents paid and will pay.

Whatever my own personal view, if the media was to portray both hezbolla and Israel as equally evil that would be one thing a possibly balanced approach, the one sided view that the majority of the media took which in turn turned world opinion and politicians into an Israel bashing fest while practically ignoring hezbolla was the result of the media and the media only.

Ben Rubinstein - Manchester UK , sep 21, 2006; 12:01 p.m.

Whatever my own personal view, if the media was to portray both hezbolla and Israel as equally evil that would be one thing a possibly balanced approach, the one sided view that the majority of the media took which in turn turned world opinion and politicians into an Israel bashing fest while practically ignoring hezbolla was the result of the media and the media only.

Ben, The anti-American and anti-Israeli tendency of the western media it is well known to me; however the problem is the WHY and in this last war I believe that was not distorted by ideology but to satisfy a large part of their nation which is prejudiced, antisemitic and isolationist. This population prefers to receive "news" that will not show them that this is a general war that will arrive to their countries, but a conflict produced by Israel and by USA.

And IMO we are seeing now a new era where "news" are "produced" on a commercial demand and not by ideological demand (as in the time of the Cold War).