Reuters Admits, Pulls Doctored Photos 593
fragmentate points to a post on PopPhoto which says "Reuters pulled a photograph of burning buildings in Beirut yesterday after a post on the Little Green Footballs blog outed it as digitally manipulated. The photo, filed on Saturday by freelance photographer Adnan Hajj, ran with the caption "Smoke billows from burning buildings destroyed during an overnight Israeli air raid on Beirut's suburbs."
Fragmentate adds "Another image from the same photographer was found to have been doctored.
Whether you're a CNN fan, or a FoxNEWS fan, you have to wonder how much of what we see is fake, or exaggerated."
Fake or exaggerated? (Score:5, Insightful)
Virtually EVERY news report from ANY source is either exaggerated (to reflect the reporters bias) or softened (to likewise reflect the reporters bias). Add to this equation the pressure for ratings and simple stories can quickly and easily become "sensational".
True 'unbiased' reporting is a myth.
If you want an idea of whats going on, read/view as much as you can -- from as many sources as you can. From Fox to CNN, from the far left Pacifica to convervative talk radio. From The Standard to the NY Times. From LGF to DailyKos. My limited experience has suggested to me that the 'real story' is usually somewhere in the middle.
That said, I'd like to address this statement from TFA: (sneeze)BULLSHIT(/sneeze)
Bad lighting conditions? Remove dust? Come on. Last I checked CRT and LCDs glow... unless he was working from memory alone without the aid of a monitor, he's a flipping liar.
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:2)
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:4, Insightful)
To play devil's advocate, a deeper story about the families of the victims wouldn't be all that interesting. After all, they're just ordinary people going about their daily lives. That their families are saddened and that they led interesting lives is expected. The really interesting thing is the story behind someone who'd go to such a length to commit an atrocious act... to show that not everything is completely black & white. If you want balance, it would make a great contrast if they showed how the innocents aren't entirely innocent just as how the evil person isn't entirely evil.
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:4, Insightful)
That's not balanced...you're marginalizing the evil of one person and marginalizing the innocence of another. In effect, you're excusing the suicide bomber by saying he's not so evil and, besides, his victims aren't exactly innocent.
Balance would be reporting the freaking story without opinion. Palestinian suicide bomber kills X Israelis on a bus. That's the story, plain and simple. When/If Israel strikes back at Palestine, cover that the same way: Israel sends ground troops into Palestinian territory. Cut it with the editorializing, that's what we're all complaining about in this thread.
--trb
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:4, Interesting)
I like to think a better measure of a news organization's worth is the value of news they bring to the viewer. The story about the Palestinian suicide bomber's family is worthwhile if it's done well. I'd say that its definately news if people from the same background continually blow themselves up to further some nebulous goal. What I mean by 'done well' is: did it explore different angles of a story. How did he/she get recruited? Did they get any fame/infame from the act? How do the rest of the family feel about what happened? What goal were they trying to acomplish, specifically how does killing oneself and a few disco kids further a cause? Their side of the story is very interesting no matter what your view of the world is. What's not interesting is being told what to think about an event without substantial information.
All news is biased. I would say that the BBC is amazingly biased, but that their style of reporting is excellent and interesting. Their view of the world is completely and utterly different than say someone living in Belize City, Sau Paolo, or Mumbai. What I don't like about FOX is not that they are biased, but that they just keep repeating the same story with 12 words over and over again. Their news is cheap propaganda. I find no substance in it; but then again most TV news is like that. Newspapers can be a little better, but often are not. The best stories I find are often pretty late in the news cycle after most people have lost their attention span. Documentaries by film makers, in depth stories in magazines like Soldier of Fortune and Playboy, and now-a-days some blogs have some great information. Business news is also extremely interesting because money is what drives almost all the decisions in the Western world.
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:4, Insightful)
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=333081890
An interesting watch...
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:3)
That's interesting... would it be possible for a station to be pro-Christian and anti-big-business for example? (I used to be a Christian, but I chose to leave the corporate world.)
Regarding the Israel/Palestine conflict, CBC is famous for reporting briefly both sides of the story, then doing a deeper story about the family of the palestinan suicide bomber, and the terrible poverty that drove him to
Clarifying bias (Score:3, Insightful)
However, when something becomes important enough, we have to choose between terms like "terrorist" and "freedom fighter" to describe the same people, depending on our biases. I agree that good journalism, or
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:3)
What a surprising thing to hear from someone with a sig like yours.
There's no reasoning with people such as yourself so I would just suggest that anyone who'd like to make an informed decision as to whether or not Sir Redneck is spot on or not just visit the CBC website [www.cbc.ca].
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:2)
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:5, Insightful)
That may be, but representing photoshop-retouched pictures as images of actual reality is more along the lines of fraud, although it might perhaps be motivated by bias.
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Bias.. (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't believe it is unreasonable, nor prejudiced, to think that a man, who obviously and intentionally doctored a photo, did so to fan the anti-Isreali flame that seems to permeate the world right now.
The fact, that the man has an "arab-sounding name", only intensifies that theory.
However, it is just a theory as is your excusing his fraud by stating he was simply trying to "make a buck." Unless you have personal knowledge of his reasons, your theory is no more valid than any other
Re:Bias.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you're being more than a little paranoid with what you think you 'see between the lines'. Not everybody has some kind of insidius agenda, whether they be freelance photographers or /. posters.
Listen to the news and take note: When the fighters are contrary to the wishes of US foreign policy, they are insurgeants or even terrorists. When they are for the wishes of US foreign policy, they are soldiers or even patriots. (This brought to light during the Reagan presidency regarding the actions in Nicaragua, it's the same these days.) News tends to colour Hezbollah and Hamas as organisations with dirty, bloody even, hands. The problem is, both sides are about as bad, rather like the tit-for-tat vengeance killing in Iraq between sunnis and shites. It's were everything becomes shades of gray and the news, often in line with Whitehouse wishes (because the Whitehouse feeds much of the media), is coloured in.
Re:Bias.. (Score:4, Insightful)
Those who intentionally TARGET children and PUBLICLY celebrate the deaths of children == Terrorist
Those who intentionally try to NOT TARGET children and publicly MOURN and REGRET the deaths of even their enemy's children == Probably NOT terrorists.
Re:Bias.. (Score:5, Insightful)
I have an even simpler definition for you:
Initiating conflicts, intentionally targeting civilians, intentionally putting civilians in harms way = terrorism.
Responding to aggression, making best efforts to not kill civilians even though foe dresses as and hides among civilians = not terrorism.
The news tends to cover Hezbollah with dirty and bloody hands because, well, they do. They intentionally locate their weapons in civilian locations such as apartment buildings, schools, and hospitals. They launch anti-personnel rockets towards population centers. When Israel responds, with inevitable civilian casualties, they are decried as evil baby killers. The media perpetuates this no-win situation by gobbling up every photo-op, whether real or doctored, because it forwards their agenda and/or ratings. How you could claim that the media is in the White house's pocket, especially in light of stories such as this one, is beyond me.
Re:Bias.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Except, of course, that Hizbollah straps explosives to the chests of humans and has them enter crowded market places and blow up citizens. They do this first. They have a history of doing this first. They do this because their stated goal is "the elimination of Isreal". Other than that, your moral equivelancy is showing.
"(because the Whitehouse feeds much of the media)"
That being so very obvious in the disproportionate coverage of Hizbollah's side.
Re:Bias.. (Score:5, Interesting)
I guess I see a serious moral difference between a side that drops leaflets warning civilians of incoming attacks and encouraging them to move/leave, so that military targets and weapons caches can be destroyed with a minimum of civilian casualties, and a side that straps bombs to 15 year olds and sends them into a Sbarro's to blow up 40 people who are trying to enjoy lunch.
Perhaps you don't see any difference, and that's your prerogative, but that kind of thinking ("we're no better because we do rotten stuff too") is exactly what is going to lead to the downfall of Western civilization. What scares me even more is that a lot of people think we deserve it. What scares me even more than THAT is that the people who think we deserve it are almost without exception educated an enlightened liberal thinkers who cherish the progress made in the name of liberty - desegregation, women's sufferage, the gradual triumphs of the gay rights movement, etc. These things would fly right out the window across the globe in the absence of countries like the U.K. and U.S.
Re:Bias.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Did you read what the latest leaflets said? "Any veichle seen moving will be destroyed." Or do you think it is coincidental that so many people over this massacre have been killed on the roads? On TV here we routinely see convoys being shelled by Israelis as refugees try to flee. Lets make something clear: the Israelis are targetting anything they can to maximise Lebanese suffering while trying to avoid too much political fallout in the west. On the other side, Hezbollah would not consider any
Re:Bias.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:5, Informative)
Reuters says it normally sends all photos to their Singapore office to check for manipulation but this one slipped through. Looks bad but not quite the same level of deception as the hack who put Kerry and Fonda in the same photo during the last election cycle.
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:3)
For what it's worth, only one of the two photographs floating about purporting to show Kerry and Fonda together was actually a fake. The other, as it turns out, was real. More here [snopes.com].
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:3)
You're conflating two issues here. Manipulating the evidence isn't bias, it's manipulating the evidence, a far more heinous crime. Two different reporters can present the same facts in different ways, eg. by describing the same group of people as terrorists or freedom fighters. Arguably there is nothing wrong with this. Different audiences have different values and this ought to be reflected by biases i
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:3, Insightful)
Are you saying that Israeli soldiers locate their bases away from civilians and never mingle with the population? The truth is that Israel has the power to take the fight to Arab homes, if the Arabs had FA-18's with laser guided bombs they might just do the reverse. Also have a look at the body count and note the ratio of combatants/civilians dead on both sid
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:5, Insightful)
You can't say that civilian areas are legit military targets because a soldier may be in the area. I am saying that Israel does not go into neighborhoods to launch artillery shells from.
And No, I fully believe that if the Hezbolla had F-16's with LGB's, they would attack civilian areas. How accurate is a "suicide bomber"? More so than a lazer guided bomb. A LGB can hit a building, maybe get lucky and knock down a door or window. A "suicide bomber" can hit a closet, bathroom, kitchen, wherever a man (or child) can stand, they can hit. Do these suicide bombers go after military targets? No. They hit teen hangouts, crowded buses and campus cafeterias. They don't even go after government buildings or wait until the buses are empty. They hit them during rush hour to cause the maximum number of civilian deaths possible. It's not a matter of accuracy, it's a matter of mind-set. Hezbolla and other jihad organizations like them are terrorists, pure and simple.
It is the new form of warfare (Score:3, Interesting)
So we are seeing a shift. If you cannot stand up to the enemy you must find another way to fight back. The geneva convention has rules about were you are supposed to fight. You are not allowed to use for instance civilians as a human shi
Terrorist vs. Freedom Fighter (Score:4, Insightful)
Part of the problem seems to be that we've taken to using the word "terrorist" so broadly, and with such a stigma attached to it, that we've forgotten what it actually means. A terrorist is a person who intentionally attacks a civilian population, usually with the immediate goal of causing mass casualties, with the ultimate goal of accomplishing a political end by causing terror and fear in said civilian population.
To say "one man's freedom fighter is another man's terrorist" is a lie; at the very least, it assumes that one man is either deluded, or misunderstanding the nature of terrorism. (At the very least it is simplistic: a person could be both a freedom fighter and a terrorist, or neither, or either one singly.)
To be a "terrorist" doesn't imply any particular political ideology. You could be a "Zionist" terrorist as easily as you could be an "Islamo-facist" one. Being a terrorist also doesn't require that someone be disconnected from a government, either; I think you could make a fairly convincing argument that a lot of warfare and accepted strategy in World War Two falls squarely into the realm of terrorism: bombing a city for its "morale effect" is simply terrorism by another name. (It's worth pointing out that most countries have rejected these tactics, and at the same time the word 'terrorist' has become more stigmatized as it becomes a less tolerated practice.)
Just because a word is used politically doesn't immediately strip it of all factual meaning; if that were the case, we wouldn't have any language left.
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:3, Insightful)
And 'biased reporting' is an overworn, inflammatory cliche drummed up by the conservative right some years ago in reaction the perception that the Fifth Estate was unfair to their ideals and goals and should be beholden to those in power instead of continuing the long standing tradition of questioning it. The phrase is repeated on a daily basis so often that people actually believe it means something.
If you're a devotee of "talk" radio or a consumer of similar ill-inform
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:4, Insightful)
Welcome to the world of tomorrow where ideals have been beaten with a bloody claw hammer and your hopeful world really doesn't exist.
News reporting organizations don't exist for the common good of mankind in today's world as they have an agenda at hand. They exist to earn revenue or generate a larger audience. The latter form works on the basis of creating a ratings foot hold in order to bolster post and pre-ceeding programming.
Though after all has been said I wonder if you have actually worked in news/journalism. (I know I have!)
I was going to go after some other points, but really your post was just riddled with jabs and pokes at the previous poster. I'm not sure I've seen that many negative associations since last nights Fox broadcast. (Actually, I don't watch it, but I thought it was funny.)
In closing, I propose a new moderation tag be put in place after reading your recent post: eloquent troll.
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:3, Insightful)
Unfortunately, that's not just an observation, it's a strategy many people adopt. The consequence? People can manipulate where "the middle" is by becoming ever more extreme. I
Re:Fake or exaggerated? (Score:3, Interesting)
Not necessarily. I work in the developing world, and one of the biggest problems we face is poor quality monitors in rooms that are too bright. Most places in the tropics have very open buildings, and artificial lighting is a luxury, so one often finds oneself sitting in a room where an LCD screen is almost unusable. I imagine that,
Well then it's proven: (Score:3, Funny)
I know you are modded as funny. (Score:3, Insightful)
Take a look at giyus.org. They basically have software which they are using to astro-turf/spam thier agenda as they find it. The Israeli foriegn office have hired over 5,000 trainee diplomats as well to run the software.
This is one such story that appeared a few hours back and I am seeing it spammed elsewhere. Even money said that a giyus user spammed slashdot with this story.
The fake photos doesn't detract from the fact that t
Wasn't there a program to find doctored images? (Score:2)
Re:Wasn't there a program to find doctored images? (Score:2)
Re:Wasn't there a program to find doctored images? (Score:2)
The problem with an automated tool is that the tool becomes a litmus test for a forger.
All the bad guy has to do is download, steal or buy the tool, then run his pictures through it. Once the tool says "this is 99% likely to be an original picture" then the bad guy knows he won't get caught.
For that reason, there are "forensic cameras" available that have a digital signature algorithm buil
Re:Wasn't there a program to find doctored images? (Score:3, Insightful)
Well this brings up the point that all photographs are manipulated. The only question is degree. And the secondary question in the case of news is "what degree of manipulation is acceptable?"
People need to get it through their heads that just as a news report can never
Re:Wasn't there a program to find doctored images? (Score:3)
tm
Re:Wasn't there a program to find doctored images? (Score:2)
(credit to JWZ for the link)
I'm guessing that images are digitally "enhanced" all the time, thereby rendering any such program useless. Whether the images are actually being manipulated to remove dust and g
Re:Wasn't there a program to find doctored images? (Score:3, Informative)
(I'd be much obliged if someone could tell me where that quote came from.)'
'In war, truth is the first casualty.' Aeschylus
'All warfare is based on deception.' Sun Tzu
'Among the calamities of war may be jointly numbered the diminution of the love of truth, by the falsehoods which interest dictates and credulity encourages.' Samuel Johnson
'The first casualty when war comes is truth.' Hiram Johnson (US Senator)
... and others
Is Reuters complicit? (Score:5, Insightful)
Sure, this photographer is at fault, and you can make assumptions about his political motives for photoshopping this image. But what's worse is how did Reuters let such a piece of crap into the system? The guys on SomethingAwful [somethingawful.com] or Worth 1000 [worth1000.com] all do a much better job, and that's just for the glory of the contest. They're not trying to pass their stuff off as "news." Even the guys at Fark [fark.com] aren't this bad (not even Heamer :-) No, this photoshop was of "The Daily Show" quality -- comically bad.
The only conclusion I can come up with is that Reuters isn't actually looking at the images that come in the door. Even if someone at Reuters had the same political agenda as the photographer, he should have had the good sense to deny that picture because the photoshopping was so obvious. Actually, neither conclusion is good news for Reuters at all.
Re:Is Reuters complicit? (Score:2)
Quite possibly. This might be a by-product of quick news cycles... less time to review new information in the rush to get the story out there first.
Seems to be a product of Hanlon's Razor though... as you say, the image quality is so bad as to be laughable.
Re:Is Reuters complicit? (Score:2)
I don't get it either. I doubt it's political, though. There are more than enough bombed out buildings in Lebanon right now to use for a story. I'm going to guess that laziness or just plain lack of access to the active front was the primary motivator since a building still burning is a scoop that shows "on the scene reporting" where as a burnt-out shell doesn't.
Re:Is Reuters complicit? (Score:2)
Re:OT: Canadians? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Is Reuters complicit? (Score:2)
Well, a talented editor exists to prevent shit like this from happening.
Before you start implying that someone is paranoid (Score:3, Insightful)
Before you start implying that someone is paranoid, you may want to do a little fact checking. Going over the grandparent post line by line:
Note that he's not saying that it's true, just suggesting that it might be. And, gi
Re:Before you start implying that someone is paran (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the forty years of Democratic rule in the House of Representatives was very well coordinated... oh wait! You were talking about the Republicans in congress over the last 13 years. Yes, I suppose since it has been over
Re:Before you start implying that someone is paran (Score:3, Informative)
Well, he's certainly not alone in this theory, and it is consistent with what Rove is known to have done to Alan Dixon, John McCain, and many others.
Well, I can't say with 100% certainty that this didn't happen, but the problem I have with this is that it relies totally on CBS to "do the right thing". Suppose CBS decided they didn't l
Sanity check then (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm assuming that (since you only objected to one point), that you agree with the rest and will focus on the one you singled out:
It certainly is possible to fact check a bald assertion. Of all the things you might want to fact check, a bald assertion is perhaps the easiest. If I say something like "The bulk of Portugal lies to the west of Spain" you will find it much easier to fact check than if I say something like "How like a flower my true love blooms."
Of course, this doesn't always mean that we have the resources to do it. Claims like "The far side of Jupiter is about -170 degrees Celsius" or "Arnold Schwarzenegger wears pink thong underwear" can be hard (expensive, risky, time consuming) to verify. So instead you can do the next best thing, and sanity check the assertion, from multiple directions.
Yes. Everyone agrees that the documents exist, and no one has proven them to be authentic.
Yes.
No, not really. The other proposed explanations (e.g. Terry McCallef(sp) did it) are even weaker.
No, not at all. In fact, the two prime reasons for suspecting Rove are 1) that it's very similar to things he's been known to do in the past (e.g. spreading negative information against his own candidate, such as he did for Harold See, forging documents as he did against Alan Dixon), and 2) it accomplished exactly what he would have wanted
Not really. Nothing in the memos was contested, and all of it had been previously reported (e.g. by the BBC). Bush never even attempted to deny any of it. The people who would know even stated that the information in the memos was essentially correct. So it wouldn't have helped Kerry's team much at all to have the documents, even if they had been legitimate.
You can go on and on like this, but I don't see how you can make it a "tin foil hat" theory, even if it can't be proved. And bear in mind here that the burden of proof at this point is on you; the original poster asked a (possibly rhetorical) question and you attacked without (so far as I can see) much ground to stand on.
--MarkusQ
Re:Sanity check then (Score:3, Informative)
Guess what? Karl Rove is not a political evil genius. He isn't even that good at what he does. He lets too many attacks and assumptions about the President go unchallenged. Your posts are a great example of this. Take this paragraph, for example:
The ultimate answer is... (Score:5, Funny)
What an idiot! (Score:2)
Sci Fi movies (Score:2)
It was just a matter of having technology cheap enough or accessible enough to be done cost effectively.
Now it appears any 13 year old with a below average PC can manipulate images to make them look authentic.
So according the same movies soon there will be an undergr
CNN fan? (Score:2)
Re:CNN fan? (Score:2)
Oblig. (Score:2, Funny)
Not unlike the smoke that now billows from the LGF webserver...
20 Minutes Into The Future (Score:3, Interesting)
From the synopsis to Max Headroom, Episode 15, "War" [maxheadroom.com], ca. 1987.
I for one... (Score:3, Funny)
When you have a hammer the world looks like a nail (Score:5, Insightful)
This is no way confined to Reuters. Here is an excerpt from yesterdays reliable sources between howard kurtz and Thomas ricks of the washington post.
Reliable sources [cnn.com]
THOMAS RICKS, REPORTER, "THE WASHINGTON POST": I think it will be. But I think civilian casualties are also part of the battlefield play for both sides here. One of the things that is going on, according to some military analysts, is that Israel purposely has left pockets of Hezbollah rockets in Lebanon, because as long as they're being rocketed, they can continue to have a sort of moral equivalency in their operations in Lebanon. KURTZ: Hold on, you're suggesting that Israel has deliberately allowed Hezbollah to retain some of it's fire power, essentially for PR purposes, because having Israeli civilians killed helps them in the public relations war here? RICKS: Yes, that's what military analysts have told me. KURTZ: That's an extraordinary testament to the notion that having people on your own side killed actually works to your benefit in that nobody wants to see your own citizens killed but it works to your benefit in terms of the battle of perceptions here. RICKS: Exactly. It helps you with the moral high ground problem, because you know your operations in Lebanon are going to be killing civilians as well.
This fellow Ricks is willing to spout crap like the above on national television. The Khmer Rougue could make a convincing case for the moral high ground against Hezbollah. Israel a country that goes to the trouble of trying to get civilians away from targets before they are hit does not.
Hello (Score:2, Insightful)
Perhaps a simpler explanation is that these doctored photos are simple fraud by a photographer trying to make the photos he is takin
Re:When you have a hammer the world looks like a n (Score:3, Interesting)
Oh, really? I mean, does someone from USA or Israel listen to the international opinion? I mean, the War on Oil^H^H^H^HTerror and this yet another international military conflict american style?
This is no way confined to Reuters. Here is an excerpt from yesterda
Re:When you have a hammer the world looks like a n (Score:4, Insightful)
Now imagine I tell you these anti-communist elements have attacked Cuba for a few decades now, and have kidnapped and killed other Cuban soldiers and civilians - all of this after Cuba retreated from the conquered American soil to prevent such attrocities. What do you think now?
Re:When you have a hammer the world looks like a n (Score:3, Insightful)
Anyone who thinks they could place the Khmer Rouge on higher moral ground than Hezbollah has no business criticising others for having agendas.
You'd have to be a grandmaster of spin to credibly equate a terrorist group that has killed fewer than a thousand people in its 20+ year existence with a regime that executed hundreds of thousands of its own people (and caused the deaths hundreds of thousands more) in the space
Re:When you have a hammer the world looks like a n (Score:3, Insightful)
Yes, the two hours I spent at Toul Sleng Museum in Phnom Penh was one of the few times I've ever felt ashamed to be human. I'm not Cambodian, and in no way can appreciate the Khmer Rouge's violent ideology, but just the sheer thought that someone could come up with such a human depravity gives me the shivers even now.
This isn't a see-my-baddies-are-worse-than-yours pissing contest. Hezbollah could be evil incarnate for as far as I care, I really have no insight into their methods or aims, but let's not bri
more occurances (Score:5, Insightful)
mix and match (Score:2, Insightful)
Define "exaggerated." (Score:5, Interesting)
More to the point, I often shoot RAW, which REQUIRES "development" in order to be shown online or printed, since as a file it's just an uncalibrated sensor dump, meaningless data, not an image at all. But the look of a RAW image can change DRASTICALLY when converted to JPG based on the choices I make when selecting things like white balance, exposure, sharpness, contrast, etc. (and these have to be manually selected--i.e. the choices must be made by me in order to get an image file out the other end, there is no "real" initial image).
The point is that the camera is only, and has always only been, a tool for realizing the vision of the photographer. It is not "objective" in any sense (and wasn't in the film days either, even film had to be "developed" and this process could vary an image quite a bit). Photoshop/GIMP/Silkypix/any other image processor is no different, and represents just an extension of the photography/development process.
If a JPEG image comes out of the camera with very low contrast, why is that the "real" scene and not an incorrect camera setting (contrast turned too low)? And if I then take a low contrast image in GIMP and adjust the contrast for better clarity, why is that a "fake" scene and not the "real" scene that I saw?
The logical extreme of such arguments is that the only "real" images in the digital age are taken with black-box cameras with all settings on "auto" and nothing adjusted afterward. Only people forget that digital cameras are just glorified A-D converters and that all of the "auto" settings are calibrated and coded by programmers who are also making decisions about how images will look (high contrast vs. low contrast, expose for shadows vs. expose for highlights, compensate for differences between human lens and camera lens or don't, etc.)
Every step of the photo process, from selecting the camera + lens in the first place all the way to selecting the compression level of the file after all else is said and done, is "editing." All photography is propaganda by the photographer and anyone that doesn't realize this is both naive and missing a great deal of the appreciable "art" involved in the process.
Re:Define "exaggerated." (Score:5, Informative)
This is a bit ingenuous. Even before digital photo manipulation, a clear distinction was recognized between standard darkroom manipulations to adjust brightness, contrast, and color, and "trick photography" such as double exposures (which is analogous with what the photographer was doing with the Photoshop clone tool).
Re:Define "exaggerated." (Score:5, Insightful)
Most modern image processors include things like tone mapping and white balance. When developing from RAW, I can make the same image look like a boring stone bench on a sunny day or an ancient, craggy stone bench on a stormy night just by selecting different tone map and white balance settings. Modern digital sensors can often see the stars even in the daytime, even though most developments of the file would not show them. But if you map the blue tones at the top of the data curve across a much wider space, suddenly there they are -- in a deep blue, detailed sky -- even though you shot on a clear summer's day. The point is that those stars aren't fake, or exaggerated in any absolute sense. They're THERE and the sensor saw them. The only question is how that data is mapped to human visual space. I as the photographer have to choose.
Very often of course the intent is to get the photo as close to "my memory of the scene" as possible, which means trying to discard data beyond human perception without a camera. But is it really philosophically any "more real" to discard data than to map across to human visual characteristics in such a way as to be perceptible? But you'd be shocked in a group of photographers processing RAW images of the same scene just how much "memory" can vary.
Re:Define "exaggerated." (Score:3)
That's true in an ivory tower sense, but neatly sidesteps the problem. This particular set of edits to this particular image is an unconscionable breach of journalistic ethics. We're not niggling about color correction or what is or isn't visible to the sensor here - we're
Re:Define "exaggerated." (Score:3, Insightful)
You can take two positions with respect to photography that I will personally agree with:
(1) All images (photos included) are lies. Th
Re:Define "exaggerated." (Score:3, Insightful)
I don't think many people would argue against processing for print; it's a necessary evil. (Also acceptable: blurring out someone's FEMA credit card number...)
However, this goes
Re:Define "exaggerated." (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm not really disagreeing with you, but remember that one of the first big stories about "photo manipulation" was the cover of Time (Newsweek?) with OJ Simpson, where the contrast
Re:Define "exaggerated." (Score:3, Informative)
You are talking about the first. This is editorial work and damages the truth only to the extent that editing the stutters and stammers out of a spoken statement.
We are seeing examples of the second and third, which are like falsifying sources and, well, lying.
Re:Define "exaggerated." (Score:3, Informative)
* Telling people where to stand and how to look - posing the photo - adding props.
* Framing the original photo to leave out things that spoil the story.
* Lying about when the photo was taken, where it was taken. Distorting the facts of what we are seeing.
* Brightness/Contrast/Gamma settings
* Colour adjustment
* Cropping - not really any different from framing the photo in the first place.
* Cleaning up speckles.
* Taking out distracting objects that don't affect the me
Fake News Stories (Score:5, Insightful)
The fact that Reuters didn't even look at the photos before publishing is just laughable. Anyone with an ounce of experience in photography could tell they were fake. Either Reuters is so inept you can't trust them to know the truth from lies or they don't care to tell the difference. Heck, a death threat to "Zionist pigs" [speroforum.com] was traced to a Reuters IP. Sure, I'll believe anything they say.
Either way, as a previous poster said, read from a wide variety of news sources and figure it out for yourself.
Shockingly poor graphic skills (Score:4, Insightful)
Another coup for LGF (Score:5, Insightful)
It's time to admit biases (Score:5, Interesting)
Almost all of the European press is up front about its bias - left, right, or otherwise. It's liberating, it's informing, it's better for consumers. If I want to read the French press and see what's going on in the right, I read Liberation, the far-left (communist), L'Humanite, the right, Le Figaro, a center-left, Le Monde. By reading articles from each newspaper on a subject, you can hear what all sides are saying quickly and get much more information.
But here in the U.S., such a bias is reviled. Fox News, for example, is looked down on for its conservative bias. I look down on them as well - not because they have a bias, at least they're more open about it - but because they try to conform to the American press ideal of supposedly unbiased reporting by claiming they're "fair and balanced". Just come out and say it!
I don't care if the NY Times is left-leaning, either. That's fine. But they should at least ADMIT it.
Americans, journalists in particular, need to embrace their biases. Let us know where you're coming from so we CAN get the message from both sides, not some filtered down, biased report passing itself off as "both" sides of the story.
Re:It's time to admit biases (Score:5, Insightful)
Theres a huge difference.
Tip of Iceberg (Score:3, Insightful)
Playboy! (Score:5, Funny)
I'm a Playboy fan, because nothing in that magazine is fake or exaggerated.
Re:Sorry, spin again (Score:3, Funny)
O -- your head
Hezbollah photographer (Score:5, Informative)
they are all somewhat guilty (Score:4, Informative)
Lots of them actually support taking shots at Israel. The people who don't support that have still allowed it to occur.
I know, it's easy for me to say that the people in Lebanon should have put Hezbolla in jail or executed the whole lot of them. There isn't a one politician over there who dares to take a strong stand against the bastards.
But yet... a nation is responsible for keeping such things in check. Each and every person has a duty to keep the gangs under control. When this is not done, somebody else will come in and do the job.
If you let the criminals operate out of your house, don't complain when you get raided.
And so badly done... (Score:3, Interesting)
If such obviously doctored photos are making it past the editors - who knows what more subtly done stuff has escaped detection.
Fake Sound (Score:5, Interesting)
Pictures don't have to be "doctored" to mislead (Score:4, Insightful)
Now suppose there's one burning building in a city. There are many different ways to depict the situation. An aerial shot will show an isolated fire, without showing any details of the damage to the burning building. A photo taken at street level will show one or two sides of the building, probably focusing on the more heavily damaged sides. People may or may not be included in the picture. If they are, does it show terrified residents running away from the building? (Shock and awe.) Onlookers standing around? (Entertainment.) Firefighters doing their job? (Situation under control.) Did the photographer go directly for the jugular (weeping mother holding her infant)? Depending on what is shown, the composition, the exact moment, etc. one can convey vastly different messages, not all of which accurately reflect the situation.
If you look at award-winning photojournalism, it's the drama-queens that win: the typical scenes are usually boring, and the unusual photos take on an iconic status. The Vietnamese girl running crying down the street, the raising of the flag over the Berlin Reichstag or on Iwojima all range from unusual to unique. They are powerful symbols, but not necessarily an accurate depiction of what goes on most of the time during a war, crisis, natural disaster, etc. (namely, not a whole lot).
Reuters admits to another fake photo (Score:3, Interesting)
And the witchhunt is on, pot vs. kettle (Score:3, Insightful)
http://powerlineblog.com/archives/014929.php [powerlineblog.com]
A fine example of a blogger making a fool of themself, doing the exact same thing they are accusing Reuters of doing. Read my response to it:
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The only photograph that strikes me as somewhat odd is the bottom image http://powerlineblog.com/archives/Hajj4567.jpg [powerlineblog.com].
The other 4 images are clearly photographs of the same scene. Let me give you my view on the positioning of the photographers in each.
#1 : http://powerlineblog.com/archives/Hajj1234.jpg [powerlineblog.com]
This picture was taken with a regular angle lens, say somthing like 35mm, towards a building, across the bridge that is out. The photographer was standing close to the right side of the road (when viewed in this direction). The car in the next picture is out of the frame, to the left of the photographer. The photographer is too far from the actual damage to get a good shot of it. The actual damage is close to the right shoulder of the man in the center of the image, off to the left.
#2 : http://powerlineblog.com/archives/Hajj1245.jpg [powerlineblog.com]
This picture has been taken from the opposite side of the road from #1, i.e. the left, shooting in the same direction. The photographer will have used a telelens, say 200mm. This pulls in the distant background and seems to place the pilons in the center of the road closer together. Note the tree white and red pilons, with the overturned fourth. Now look at #1 again, you will notice the same three pilons with the overturned one pointing towards the photographer. Also not that the two palms and the car on the right side of the road are visible in #1 as well, off in the distance.
Again, this picture has been shot across the destroyed bridge, which is now partly obscured by the car and the man. But you can make out the concrete mesh fragments sticking off the right shoulder of the man, to the right.
#3 : http://powerlineblog.com/archives/Hajj2345.jpg [powerlineblog.com]
In #3, the photopgrapher has arrived at the collapsed bridge. From this angle, the photographer, shooting with something like the 35mm again, can shoot into the gap, clearly showing the damage. The photographer is now well past the car in #2, but the other car is still visible across the gap. The car in #3 is actually visible in all of the images, as is the building in the background, though very poorly in #1.
#4 : http://powerlineblog.com/archives/Hajj3456.jpg [powerlineblog.com]
In #4, the photographer has moved back beyond the overturned car. Or, about as likely, #4 was actually taken before #1. The photographer is now so far back and to the left, that the small watchtower is also in the frame.
The allegations in the piece are sensationalist and don't stand up to scrutiny. The author (and powerlineblog) are doing exactly what they are accusing Reuters of doing: posting material without a critical and sceptical review. If the bottom photo (#5, http://powerlineblog.com/archives/Hajj4567.jpg [powerlineblog.com]) was published as a photo of the same incident, that's not right But some of the comments on the other 4 are simply wrong.
I've included a schematic drawing of the scene as I think it was, for your reference. Note that I was there no more than the author was and that errors in my reasoning or schematics should in no way impact what Reuters and Hajj have to say for themselves.
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The schematic I'm talking about: http://i86.photobucket.com/albums/k88/Grismar75/i [photobucket.com]
Re:I'll answer that last question. (Score:2)
Why do you think the BBC is unbiased? Do you really think that none of the bias of the editors and reporters ever creep in?
I watch the BBC, CNN, and NPR. I don't tend to watch Fox because I think I am politically slightly right of center. I tend to want my news to be from slightly left or more than slightly left of center. I figure that tends to balance my world view.
Re:I'll answer that last question. (Score:2)
Re:I'll answer that last question. (Score:3, Interesting)
Re:Hezbollah - "terrorists" or "resistance movemen (Score:3, Insightful)
So, how long does Israel just sit there and let rockets fall on civilians before they can respond in such a manner that will stop it once and for all?
Hezbolla is considered a terrorist organization by Israel, the US, and Canada. But the Islamic countries consider it a resistance movement, as do a number of other countri