2006 Lebanon War photographs controversies#Photo manipulation

Image:Beirut-smoke.jpg attack on Beirut.]]

Image:Adnan Hajj Beirut photo comparison.jpg

Image:IAFplaneLebanon.jpg F-16 deploying a single flare over Southern Lebanon; the flare was digitally duplicated to make it appear that several missiles were being fired.]]

The Adnan Hajj photographs controversy (also called Reutersgate) involves digitally manipulated photographs taken by Adnan Hajj, a Lebanese freelance photographer based in the Middle East, who had worked for Reuters over a period of more than ten years. He admitted to using Photoshop to add and darken smoke spirals in a photograph of Beirut, in order to make the damage appear worse.[http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002951326 Reuters Says Freelancer Manipulated Lebanon Photos] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20101230010221/http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/search/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002951326 |date=30 December 2010 }}, Photo District News Online, 18 January 2007 Hajj's photographs were presented as part of Reuters' news coverage of the 2006 Lebanon War, but Reuters has admitted that at least two were significantly altered before being published.{{cite news |title=Reuters toughens rules after altered photo affair |quote=The two photos, both of Israeli military action in Lebanon during the war there last August, were taken by a freelance photographer, Adnan Hajj. Reuters ended its relationship with Hajj following an initial inquiry soon after bloggers questioned whether the photographs had been digitally altered using Photoshop software. All Hajj's images were removed from the Reuters Pictures sales database. |url=https://www.reuters.com/article/latestCrisis/idUSL18678707 |publisher=Reuters |date=2007-01-18}}{{cite news|date=August 6, 2006 |url=http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002950988&imw=Y |title=Smoke and Mirrors: Reuters Dismisses Photog Over Doctored Beirut Picture |publisher=Editor and Publisher |access-date=2006-08-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060908091324/http://editorandpublisher.com/eandp/news/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1002950988&imw=Y |archive-date=8 September 2006 |url-status=dead }} Reuters stated that Hajj had edited a second photo, cloning a flare on a picture of an Israeli F16 and falsely claiming they were three air-to-ground missiles, and critics raised further questions about Hajj's work.[http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3287774,00.html "Reuters admits to more image manipulation"], Ynetnews, 7 August 2006

The first image was discovered on August 5, 2006 when blogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs wrote that the first image "shows blatant evidence of manipulation" (Adobe Photoshop clone stamp),{{cite web|date=August 5, 2006 |url=http://littlegreenfootballs.com/article/21956_Reuters_Doctoring_Photos_from_Beirut |title=Reuters Doctoring Photos from Beirut? |publisher=Little Green Footballs |access-date=2021-10-26}} Reuters removed all of Hajj's photographs from their site; Hajj claimed to not have intentionally altered the photo but was trying to remove "dust marks".{{cite web |year=2007 |url=http://www.famouspictures.org/altered-images/#HajjControversy2006|title=Famous pictures magazine - Altered Images|work=Famous Pictures |access-date=2007-10-03 |last=Lucas, Dean |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071011094052/http://famouspictures.org/mag/index.php?title=Altered_Images |archive-date=11 October 2007 |url-status=live}} Reuters did not stand by the photographer and admitted that Hajj had altered it, saying "photo editing software was improperly used on this image. A corrected version will immediately follow this advisory. We are sorry for any inconvenience."{{cite news|date=August 6, 2006 |url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3286966,00.html |title=Reuters admits altering Beirut photo |newspaper=Ynetnews |access-date=2006-08-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060809214158/http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0%2C7340%2CL-3286966%2C00.html |archive-date=9 August 2006 |url-status=live |last1=Lappin |first1=Yaakov }} Head of PR Moira Whittle said: "Reuters takes such matters extremely seriously as it is strictly against company editorial policy to alter pictures."

The second manipulated image was reported by the pseudonymous blogger "Dr. Rusty Shackleford" on his blog "The Jawa Report".{{cite web|date=August 6, 2006 |url=http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/184206.php |title=Another Fake Reuters Photo from Lebanon |publisher=The Jawa Report |access-date=2006-08-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060809023617/http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/184206.php |archive-date=9 August 2006 |url-status=live}}{{cite web |url=http://www.nysun.com/foreign/reuters-pulls-920-pictures-by-discredited/37474/ |title=Reuters Pulls 920 Pictures by Discredited Photographer |work=New York Sun |date=August 8, 2006 |access-date=March 18, 2010 |archive-date=November 28, 2009 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20091128131917/http://www.nysun.com/foreign/reuters-pulls-920-pictures-by-discredited/37474/ |url-status=dead }} Reuters captioned it as showing an Israeli F-16 fighter jet firing ground-attack missiles "during an air strike on Nabatiyeh", but the F-16 was actually deploying one defensive flare, and the original photograph showed only one flare.{{cite news|date=August 7, 2006 |url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3287774,00.html |title=Reuters admits to more image manipulation |newspaper=Ynetnews |access-date=2006-08-07 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060811162949/http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0%2C7340%2CL-3287774%2C00.html |archive-date=11 August 2006 |url-status=live |last1=Lappin |first1=Yaakov }}{{Cite web|url=https://news.google.com/newspapers?id=HS4zAAAAIBAJ&sjid=dAgGAAAAIBAJ&pg=2021,2902823&dq=jawa-report&hl=en|title=The Free Lance-Star - Google News Archive Search}} The photo had been doctored to increase the number of flares falling from the F-16 from one to three, and misidentified them as missiles.

On August 6, Reuters announced it would stop all cooperation with Adnan Hajj.{{cite news |date=August 8, 2006 |url=http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5254838.stm |title=Reuters drops Beirut photographer |publisher=BBC |access-date=2006-10-10 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061028161838/http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/5254838.stm |archive-date=28 October 2006 |url-status=live}} Hajj claimed he had just been trying to remove dust marks, and that he made mistakes due to the bad lighting conditions he was working under. Critics point out that this is impossible, as Hajj's doctored image added an entire plume of smoke, duplicated several buildings, and showed a repeating pattern indicating that one plume of smoke was "cloned" several times.[http://www.layoutmag.net/blog/2006/08/bad-photoshopping-saves-day.html Bad Photoshopping saves the day] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070311145714/http://www.layoutmag.net/blog/2006/08/bad-photoshopping-saves-day.html |date=March 11, 2007}} LAYOUT editor's blog, August 14, 2006

On August 7, Reuters decided to withdraw all 920 photos by Hajj from sale. On January 18, 2007 Reuters reported that an internal investigation into the Adnan Hajj photomanipulation had led to a top Reuters photo editor being fired.{{cite news|url=http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003534746|title=Reuters Investigation Leads To Dismissal Of Editor|author=Daryl Lang|publisher=Photo District News|date=January 18, 2007|access-date=2007-01-18 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20070121153525/http://www.pdnonline.com/pdn/newswire/article_display.jsp?vnu_content_id=1003534746 |archive-date=21 January 2007 |url-status=live}} As of May 11, 2008, Reuters had removed all of Hajj's images from its site.{{Citation needed|date=October 2024}}

A photo of a burning Qur'an amid a pile of rubble, also taken by Hajj, seemed suspicious to Los Angeles Times media critic Tim Rutten, since the building it was in had been destroyed in an Israeli airstrike hours beforehand, and everything else in the photo was already ash.[https://web.archive.org/web/20070616025602/http://www.journalism.wisc.edu/j202/discussion_spring07/wk8_lat_photos.pdf "Lebanon photos: Take a closer look"], Tim Rutten, Los Angeles Times, 12 August 2006 A number of photographs were taken from Lebanon showing various children's toys in the foreground, each surrounded by a pile of rubble. Rutten also wrote about this set, saying that "Reuters might want to check its freelancers' expenses for unexplained Toys R Us purchases."

Similarly, CAMERA questioned the authenticity of seemingly pristine photographs and photo albums lying on the top of the rubble of buildings destroyed by Israeli missiles, asking "how often does one find intact photographs sitting alone and undisturbed on top of the ruins of a building levelled by a missile? But coincidentally or not, photographers from various news organizations have been finding just that in rubble all over Lebanon" ... "with the only common denominator that all purport to depict Israel's destruction of Lebanese civilian life".

Salam Daher, the head of the South Lebanon civil defense organisation, was accused by bloggers and websites of being a Hezbollah member and of using the bodies of children for propaganda purposes in photographs taken at the scene of the 2006 Qana airstrike.

{{cite web

|url=http://www.zombietime.com/reuters_photo_fraud/

|title=The Reuters Photo Scandal

|author=zombie

|publisher=zombietime.com

|date=8 August 2006

|accessdate=16 July 2008

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080624040513/http://www.zombietime.com/reuters_photo_fraud/

|archive-date=24 June 2008

|url-status=live

}}

On 8 August, CNN anchor Anderson Cooper reported about a Hezbollah press tour of a bombed-out area in southern Beirut on 23 July 2006, during which Hezbollah operatives asked a group of empty ambulances to switch on their sirens and flashing lights for the benefit of the waiting press photographers, to give the impression that they were responding to casualties. Senior Producer Charlie Moore described the same tour as a "dog-and-pony show".{{cite news|title=Our very strange day with Hezbollah |url=http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2006/07/our-very-strange-day-with-hezbollah.html |publisher=CNN |author=Charlie Moore |date=23 July 2006 |accessdate=30 September 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060921155727/http://www.cnn.com/CNN/Programs/anderson.cooper.360/blog/2006/07/our-very-strange-day-with-hezbollah.html |archive-date=21 September 2006 |url-status=live }}

The same day, Richard Landes and The Wall Street Journal editorial writer James Taranto challenged the validity of a photograph taken by Associated Press worker Lefteris Pitarakis. The picture in question depicted several Lebanese residents who were reportedly killed in an Israeli air strike. Upon close examination of a single still image, Taranto concluded that one man in particular was pretending to be dead.Taranto, James. [https://web.archive.org/web/20080911174253/http://www.opinionjournal.com/best/?id=110008766 Jihadis Playing Possum], The Wall Street Journal, 8 August 2006.

"Plainly this scene was staged for the benefit of the cameras, though it is important to note we know of no evidence that the photographer was complicit in the staging. It is, however, a clear example of how terrorist groups use journalists to spread their propaganda."

A cursory examination of several other stills in the photographic sequence established that the man first assumed to be feigning his own death was in fact dead. Consequently, both Richard Landes and James Taranto acknowledged they were "mistaken."

After the International Committee of the Red Cross issued a statement saying that "two of its ambulances were struck by [Israeli] munitions, although both vehicles were clearly marked" on 23 July 2006, wounding nine people,[http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList577/1FE66CF8A9A9FEF2C12571B5005F59A0 Lebanese Red Cross ambulances suffer new security incidents] {{webarchive |url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060902200518/http://www.icrc.org/Web/eng/siteeng0.nsf/iwpList577/1FE66CF8A9A9FEF2C12571B5005F59A0 |date=2 September 2006 }}, International Committee of the Red Cross, 24 July 2006 the Associated Press reported that "Israeli jets blasted two ambulances with rockets" according to "Ali Deebe, a Red Cross spokesman in Tyre".[http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=11804 "Lebanese hospital struggles with wounded"] {{webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20071009165923/http://www.americanchronicle.com/articles/viewArticle.asp?articleID=11804 |date=9 October 2007 }}, Kathy Gannon, Associated Press, 24 July 2006 The Boston Globe quoted Kasim Shaalan as saying "A big fire came toward me, like in a dream" after a "rocket or missile had made a direct hit through the roof".{{cite news | url = http://www.boston.com/news/world/middleeast/articles/2006/07/25/ambulance_drivers_tell_tales_of_horror/ | work=The Boston Globe | first=Thanassis | last=Cambanis | title=Ambulance drivers tell tales of horror | date=25 July 2006| accessdate= 28 February 2007 }}

A controversy developed when "zombie", the pseudonymous owner of the {{Proper name|zombietime}} website, posted a long essay arguing (among other things) that the damage to the ambulance was far too light for a missile strike.

{{cite web

|url=http://www.zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/

|title=The Red Cross Ambulance Incident

|author=zombie

|publisher=zombietime.com

|date=23 August 2006

|accessdate=11 September 2006

|archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060913180812/http://www.zombietime.com/fraud/ambulance/

|archive-date=13 September 2006

|url-status=live

}}

Zombie said that the ambulance was rusted out in the photographs, that explosive damage would not have left a rusted-out shell, and that the photos showed no blast damage but instead a perfectly round hole that coincided precisely with where the roof vent would be, and was on other ambulances.

In December 2006, Human Rights Watch released a report on forensic investigations they conducted in Qana. The group concluded that there was no hoax.[https://www.hrw.org/backgrounder/mena/qana1206/index.htm The "Hoax" That Wasn’t: The 23 July Qana Ambulance Attack], Human Rights Watch, 19 December 2006 HRW had "originally reported that the ambulances had been struck by missiles fired from an Israeli airplane, but that conclusion was incorrect". The December 2006 report speculated that the ambulances were hit by a "smaller type of missile", possibly a "SPIKE anti-armor missile" or "the still experimental DIME (dense inert metal explosive) missile." Both missiles have a relatively small blast radius, with DIME being specifically designed to limit collateral damage.

Professor Avi Bell, a reservist in the Israel Defense Forces, criticized the Human Rights Watch report, writing that "the report contains no evidence whatsoever of any other Israeli presence in the area that could have attacked the ambulances. ... The report presents nothing more than its conjecture that Israel possesses and used unspecified new 'limited impact missiles designed to cause low collateral damage' fired from drones. ... Human Rights Watch assumes Israeli guilt without proof, viewing its mission as constructing a scenario, however implausible, in which it might be right."{{cite news | url=http://www.nysun.com/opinion/human-rights-watch-troubling-report/46037/ | work=The New York Sun | first=Avi | last=Bell | title=Human Rights Watch: Troubling Report | date=3 January 2007 | accessdate=16 March 2011 | archive-date=26 February 2011 | archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20110226013843/http://www.nysun.com/opinion/human-rights-watch-troubling-report/46037/ | url-status=dead }}

Photographs submitted to Reuters and Associated Press showed a Lebanese woman mourning in front of destroyed buildings, said to be her home, on two different pictures taken by two photographers, published and captioned two weeks apart, which BBC editors replaced on their website after comments pointing to the inconsistency.{{cite web|author=Steve Herrmann |url=https://www.bbc.co.uk/blogs/theeditors/2006/08/trusting_photos.html |title=BBC NEWS | The Editors |publisher=BBC |accessdate=1 March 2012}} Guardian features writer Patrick Barkham offered the following explanation for other reported time-stamp inconsistencies between different news agencies:{{cite news | url = https://www.theguardian.com/media/2006/aug/14/mondaymediasection.israel |location=London |work=The Guardian | first=Patrick | last=Barkham | title=Spot the difference | date=14 August 2006| accessdate= 29 April 2010 }}

[B]loggers in Britain and the US want to prove that the mainstream media are swallowing Hizbullah propaganda. [...] At first, they suggested victims of the Israeli bombings were being carried around and posed for pictures because of different time-stamps on photographs reproduced on news websites. An AP photo was time-stamped 7.21 am, showing a dead girl in an ambulance. Another AP picture by a different photographer, stamped 10.25 am, showed the same girl being loaded on to the ambulance. A third, with the time 10.44 am, showed a rescue worker carrying the girl with no ambulance nearby. Three agencies – AP, AFP and Reuters – denied staging pictures at Qana. And the explanation for the different times was simple. Different news websites, such as Yahoo, put their own time-stamps on photos they receive from feeds; and AP does not distribute photos sequentially but on their news value and how quickly they are sent in.

The New York Times improperly captioned a photo taken in the city of Tyre in its online edition; an injured rescue worker being lifted from the rubble was implied to have been a bombing victim when in fact the worker had slipped and fallen. The newspaper subsequently issued a correction, saying that the photo had appeared in the printed edition with the correct caption.{{cite news | url = https://www.nytimes.com/2006/08/09/pageoneplus/corrections.html?_r=2&oref=login&oref=slogin | accessdate =15 January 2009 | work=The New York Times | title=Corrections: For the Record | date=9 August 2006}}

A set of photos taken by press photographer Bruno Stevens show a Lebanese gunman with a raging fire in the background. One such photo appeared on the cover of the 31 July issue of U.S. News & World Report, with the inside caption, "Hezbollah guerilla poses at the site of an Israeli attack near Beirut". Another one was published in the 31 July issue of Time, with a caption saying the fire came from the "wreckage of a downed Israeli jet." Michelle Malkin and anonymous blogger Allahpundit stated that the fire in the background appeared to be a large pile of burning tires.{{cite news|title=New York Times 'used fraudulent photo' |url=http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3288887,00.html |publisher=Ynet |date=9 August 2006 |accessdate=11 August 2006 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060811160801/http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0%2C7340%2CL-3288887%2C00.html |archive-date=11 August 2006 |url-status=dead}}{{cite web|url=http://hotair.com/archives/2006/08/08/another-bogus-photo/ |title=Blog Archive » Another bogus photo? (Update: "The Passion of the Toys") (Update: U.S. News cover staged?) (Update: NYT photo fraud, too?) (Bumped) |publisher=Hot Air |accessdate=1 March 2012}}

On 11 November 2006 Stevens, on the online forum "Lightstalkers", gave his explanation for the discrepancy.{{cite web|url=http://www.lightstalkers.org/the__garbage_dump__story__complete_explanation |title=The Lebanon "garbage dump" story: complete explanation. |publisher=Lightstalkers |accessdate=1 July 2016 |url-status=bot: unknown |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20080920111815/http://www.lightstalkers.org/the__garbage_dump__story__complete_explanation |archive-date=20 September 2008 }} He wrote that he had originally given one of the photos the following caption:

:"Kfar Chima, near Beirut, 17 July 2006 An Israeli Air Force F16 has allegedly been shot down while bombing a group of Hezbollah owned trucks, at least one of these trucks contained a medium range ground to ground missile launcher."{{citation needed|date=October 2014}}

He wrote that sometime later, after having done more investigation, he had modified his caption to:

:"Kfar Chima, near Beirut, 17 July 2006 The Israeli Air Force bombed a group of Hezbollah chartered trucks parked on the back of large Lebanese Army barracks, at least one of these trucks contained a medium range ground to ground missile launcher, at least one missile was hit, misfiring high into the sky before falling down and starting a huge fire in the barracks' parking lot."{{citation needed|date=October 2014}}

In his post, he wrote that he had had no say in the magazines' captions. He also reaffirmed the validity of his second caption, stating that the fire did not come from a garbage dump and was indeed the result of an Israeli attack; though he considered the site "a very legitimate target for the Israeli Air Force."{{citation needed|date=October 2014}}

• Arab–Israeli conflict
• Battle of Jenin (2002)
• Journalistic fraud
• Journalism scandals
• Media coverage of the Arab–Israeli conflict
• Muhammad al-Durrah controversy
• Pallywood
• Photo manipulation

{{Reflist}}

• [https://web.archive.org/web/20080724160119/http://acjournal.org/holdings/vol9/summer/articles/fauxtography.html A Concise History of the Fauxtography Blogstorm in the 2006 Lebanon War]
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20100218130501/http://digitalcustom.com/howto/mediaguidelines.asp DigitalCustom Model Ethics Guidelines]
• [http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp Photo Fraud in Lebanon] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20081021033917/http://www.aish.com/movies/PhotoFraud.asp |date=2008-10-21 }} on Aish.com
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20100804022639/http://www.cs.dartmouth.edu/farid/research/digitaltampering/ "Digital Tampering in the Media, Politics and Law"]. Recent history of media photo manipulation. Hany Farid, professor, Dartmouth College. Last accessed August 7, 2006.
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060813184207/http://news.yahoo.com/s/realclearpolitics/20060807/cm_rcp/institutional_failure_at_reute "Institutional Failure at Reuters"] by Thomas Lifson for Yahoo! News, August 7, 2006 (alternate [http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2006/08/institutional_failure_at_reute.html link]).
• [https://web.archive.org/web/20060812061304/http://www.laweekly.com/news/news/reuters-image-problem/14170/ "Reuters' Image Problem"] by Brendan Bernhard in the LA Weekly online, August 9, 2006.
• [http://mds.marshall.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1002&context=communications_faculty A Concise History of the Fauxtography Blogstorm in the 2006 Lebanon War] by Stephen D. Cooper, Marshall University

{{2006 Lebanon War}}

{{DEFAULTSORT:2006 Lebanon War Photographs Controversies}}

Photographs controversies

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