Another Photographer fired for altering images

And what was done to the image really didn't add much - a pointless edit.

that's laughably bad.

I thought it was hilarious that the photographer's supposed excuse was that he was removing dust spots. From a picture of smoke!! Does he think everyone else is an idiot or what?

dude that guy sux's i wonder if they are hiring for a photoshopper

With regard to the other image that Hajj manipulated, to show an Israeli fighter jet dropping 3 flares, instead of 1 - was that done to remove dust spots, too?

That image was so blatantly edited that it could almost make you wonder...did Reuters completely go to sleep when he submitted it, or did they allow it intentionally?

Oh well, either way, I guess fewer people will be paying attention to photos coming out of Lebanon now...I wonder if this will have any repercussions in the rest of the pj community...

That is really sad, both the story and the retouching.

We could give him the benefit of the doubt and put his poor technique down to the fact that he was cloning under fire

LMAO!

While my PS techniques aren't the best, I guess they would probably suffer even more with the added 'stimulation' of exploding ordinance.

A valid point I think Neil.

What I found interesting was the description of the second doctored pic, one of an f-16

"had also been doctored to increase the number of flares dropped by the plane from one to three."

Now why is it worth losing your job over adding two flares? seriously now.

Yeah, that picture's on the web as well...doctored about as good as this one....ok, maybe a 'tad' better, the copy/paste was much cleaner than the copy/paste of the buildings in the smoke pic. Oh well, not bringing politics into this, but something smells a little 'fishy' here, I just can't buy that a photog working for Reuters is this bad at photoshop, although anything's possible.

Maybe it's time to put together a portfolio and send it to Reuters...if they're really this blind, I'll make a killing.

Wow. What a joke.

That guy must really want me to punch him in the face. Seriously; you're a photojournalist. Your job is to report the news... not to make it. People are dying and all you can think about is adding more smoke to further your own "career" as an unbiased source for reporting the news?

Things like this are why I can't believe half the stuff on the TV anymore. If it isn't a political bias or a gross misrepresentation of available data, it's a photog doctoring an image to change the meaning of a shot.

When working for photo agency your PS ability is not top priority. All PJ work including sport, which I shoot most, need extremely little PS work. Actually it's preffered to do as little as possible in pp. And if this is all you do, you don't have any need for some extreme, or at least above average, PS knowleadge. Only tools I use for this thing are crop, levels or curves and if really necessary healing brush for removing dust (not the way he "tried to remove dust" ). That's pretty much it.
When you are in commercial photography things are different, but even there photographers don't do PS. They have people who do this and who actually know a lot more then any photographer would ever know about PS. Afterall... photographers photograph, and pp is someone elses job.

Man, did you guys really LOOK at the manipulated picture?

Apart from the obvious moral issues, it amazes how bad the PP was. I mean, if you're trying to deceive an entire world...

Mixed thoughts, not to take particularly seriously:
Maybe they guy is one of those who wants to get caught? You know, like a gambler (or substance abuser) who tries to quit but cannot... in the end he does something...anything..​.. to get caught, to get the attention he needs to stop a behavior that is slowly destroying his life.

What am I talking about? I'm not a shrink! I just like to play with pictures. By the way, there is blog about post processing and image manipulation appearing shortly on my website. I'll let you know when it's up.

Happy shooting!

I hear you, but it's not like it's really an "anymore" thing - bias has been a part of news reporting for...well, probably pretty much for as long as there've been formal news organizations.

If anything, the news reporting of 50 or 100 years ago was more politically biased than today's reporting - honest, go read about William Randolph Hearst, if you doubt this. Or examine the difference in reporting between the pro- and anti-**** news organizations in the US, in the years leading up to our involvement in WWII. Or look at how various "opponents of Communism" in positions of authority at various news organizations, outrageously slanted their coverage of all manner of stories during the 1950s. Reporting on the Civil Rights movement and the Vietnam War was similarly biased according to certain people's social and political beliefs. Reporters were told to emphasize certain points, and ignore others. Photos were run completely out of context, or in some cases manipulated in the darkroom so as to better illustrate one point of view.

The idea that news organizations should be neutral - should essentially be pipelines through which facts flow, with no bias, editing, or editorial slant - may or may not have some merit. But one thing it doesn't have is much historical reality.