Reuters Faces Blog Backlash for Altered Photo
Sunday, August 6th, 2006;
-- Andy Beal |
It’s interesting that, just before I get ready to discuss online reputation monitoring at SES San Jose, Reuters is facing a blog storm. The news organization has been caught publishing an altered image of Beirut, after an air attack.
A Reuters photograph of smoke rising from buildings in Beirut has been withdrawn after coming under attack by American web logs. The blogs accused Reuters of distorting the photograph to include more smoke and damage.
As Rubel points out, the blogosphere is going crazy. Reuters has done what they should do, withdrawn the image and apologized.
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August 6th, 2006 at 6:48 pm
And, as usual, much of the blog commentary distorts things. It appears that the photojournalist doctored the photo, that this wasn’t done at Reuters HQ or anything. Yes, he’s still a Reuters employee, but much of the commentary makes it sound like this was done by Reuters as a company.
Is this a big deal? Well, yes and no. Yes, because we need to be able to trust the news not to be faked. No, because it seems it was one overzealous photog and the company did the right thing as soon as it knew. Despite that, I predict at least a couple days of righteous indignation about how the mainstream media can’t be trusted.
August 6th, 2006 at 8:52 pm
I agree with you. I’ve not looked, but I wonder how many of these bloggers have pointed out the likely hundreds of inaccurate blog posts that go up each day.