Reuters admits photo manipulation

On Sunday, Reuters withdrew an image of smoke rising from burning buildings after an Israeli air strike on the suburbs of Beirut on August 5, 2006. This is because evidence has emerged that the photograph had been manipulated to show more smoke.

The manipulated image is shown on the left. The unaltered image, shown on the right, has since run.

Freelance photographer Adnan Hajj has been told that his work will not be used by Reuters in the future.

Reuters said that it had received email complaints from more than 2,000 readers. It added that it issued a kill on the photo in question, and sent out an unaltered version as soon as possible, as well as running a story about the incident.

This is what Reuters said the photographer said:

“Reuters has discussed the incident with the photographer, who has been a non-staff stringer. He has denied deliberately attempting to manipulate the image, saying that he was trying to remove dust marks and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under. This represents a serious breach of Reuters standards and we will not be accepting or using pictures taken by him.”