10th
Not A Good Week For Picture Editors
On Monday, I posted about the growing technology behind digital forensics in the battle to find fake photos.
Today, we receive word that a widely circulated photo of Iranian missile tests was a fake. (It showed up on the cover of the Tribune and the L.A. Times, as well as all the major players’ websites. Insert photo of sinking Tribune Co. ship here.)
At second glance, it’s a wonder why a trained picture editor didn’t notice this sooner. AFP retracted the image today. It apparently received the photo from an Iranian military news agency, although it’s not clear who did the digital altering.
Yesterday, more bad news for A1 photos. The New York Times printed a correction to a truly sad photo of a baby in Zimbabwe with casts on both his legs. The mother said his injuries came during an incident of state-sponsored violence in which her son was thrown onto a concrete floor. The sight so disturbed Times journalists that they took the child to a hospital, where it was found that the casts were really covering medical treatment for club feet. The mother later admitted she had lied because she wanted better medical care for her son. Whoops.
photo via The Lede
