Free Republic

The cover of Nobel Laureate Al Gore's new book "Our Choice: A Plan to Solve the Climate Crisis" was intentionally doctored to exaggerate the appearance of hurricanes in the northern hemisphere as well as reduce the amount of ice present in the Arctic. Maybe even more ominously, Florida was so diminished it's almost totally gone. As reported by Florida State University hurricane expert Ryan Maue at the website Watts Up With That, the truth was apparently inconvenient for the Global Warmingist-in-Chief (h/t NBer Blonde): The cover opens and closes half and half - so you only see one hurricane...as in...

Had CNN spliced footage of a sparsely-attended Capitol Hill rally to discredit the reports of large numbers of attendees to the 9/12 rally in September, conservatives would have rightly howled about media bias. What will conservatives say about Fox News splicing footage of the 9/12 rally into coverage of Michele Bachmann’s otherwise well-attended rally last week? Jon Stewart gives Fox News a well-deserved poke in the eye for fudging the footage, as well as exposing rather clearly its source:

Back when Norman Rockwell ruled Saturday evenings, Adobe wasn't even a gleam in some nerd's eye, but a new book shows that the painter was, nevertheless, a photoshop god. Very few Gizmodo readers were even born when Rockwell painted his last Saturday Evening Post cover, but we all know them. You hear that name and suddenly you can picture those overly detailed, cartoonishly dramatic but ultimately kinda corny depictions of American life. Well, Norman Rockwell: Behind the Camera, written and compiled by Ron Schick, has given me immense newfound respect for the man, for the meticulous photography, the real people...

Civil War Generals, c. 1865 Generally regarded as the world's first commercially successful photojournalist, Matthew Brady was also one of the medium's most accomplished manipulators. In this group portrait of William Tecumseh Sherman and his top officers, he added one figure. For the record, the men are, standing, from left: Oliver Otis Howard, William Babcock Hazen, Jefferson Columbus Davis and Joseph Anthony Mower; seated, from left: John Alexander Logan, Sherman, Henry Warner Slocum and Francis P. Blair. The Original Image: Brady added Blair at the far right. One of Sherman's corps commanders in the critical final offensive in Georgia, Blair...

An Article Published in the October/09/ 2009 by newspaper DanTri in Hanoi indicated police arrested two suspects as they committed assault other people are journalist Tran Khai Thanh Thuy and her Husband . http://dantri.com.vn/c20/s20-355166/tran-khai-thanh-thuy-bi-bat-ve-toi-co-y-gay-thuong-tich.htm The photo which shown an injured man Nguyen Manh Diep in the hospital (Anh Nguyễn Mạnh �iệp bị đánh vỡ đầu) actually a fake photo . The photo was taken in 2005 and later photoshop the date imprinted on the photo to Oct/09/2009 In order to make it looks genuinely as the recent date . The said photo above could be opened by using wordpad to...

LOS ANGELES: Software giant Microsoft Corp is apologising for altering a photo on its website to change the race of one of the people shown in t he picture. A photo on the Seattle-based company's US website shows two men, one Asian and one black, and a white woman seated at a conference room table.

The New York Times has removed photos from its website that appear to have been digitally altered. From Fishbowl NY Editor & Publisher noticed that the New York Times had taken down a slideshow of photos by Portuguese photographer Edgar Martins that had appeared in this Sunday's magazine depicting abandoned house construction projects in the wake of the financial crisis. Now, instead of the gallery online, there is a short statement from the paper: "The pictures in this feature were removed after questions were raised about whether they had been digitally altered." It's unclear who made the original allegations of...

The smiling, ethnically diverse family featured on the cover of Toronto's latest edition of its summer Fun Guide was digitally altered to make the photo more "inclusive," which city officials say is in keeping with a policy to reflect diversity. A spokesman for the department that publishes the guide listing recreation activities confirmed the publication was doctored to insert the face of a different father. "He superimposed the African-Canadian person onto the family cluster in the original photo. It was two photographs and one head was superimposed over the original family photo," said John Gosgnach, communications director for the...

At least one picture shows an American soldier apparently raping a female prisoner while another is said to show a male translator raping a male detainee. Further photographs are said to depict sexual assaults on prisoners with objects including a truncheon, wire and a phosphorescent tube.

Highlights - The site, thedirty.com, now claims they have a sex tape of Carrie Prejean. - However, the site’s owner has a history of making false claims and profiting from the publicity and reaction his allegations generate. - The most popular case was Kobe Bryant and Laker Girl Vanessa Curry. - No photographic evidence of a Bryant and Curry affair emerged; despite weeks of claims he would soon publish pictures. Read full report: http://www.butasforme.com/2009/05/13/fraud-thedirtycom-says-video-of-prejean-coming-but-the-site-has-a-history-of-hyping-slanderous-material-that-never-materialized/

Recently a 'Community activist' (AKA Pain in the A**) in the city of Boston named Sadiki Cambone, brought a set of pictures purporting to be of our service men raping Iraqi women to the Boston City Council. Much like John Kerry this Sadiki Cambone throws aroundhis service in the militaryto prove his alleged patriotism, all the while undermining our troops at every opportunity. The Boston Glob(e) published these pictures as being genuine without bothering to verify them.As it turns out the pictures actually come from a fetish porn site of men in camouflage having sex with porn actress. On todays...

The mind reels at how news organizations might employ this technology in the future. Will we see holograms of reporters standing outside in hurricanes?

Anger at fake Sarah Palin photos as smear campaign makes her 'look like a stripper' Last updated at 23:52pm on 06.09.08   Skirting the issues: Clearly mocked-up photos like this are being used to undermine Sarah Palin's image as a serious politician Sarah Palin's credibility as a possible American Vice-President is being undermined by a series of spoof photographs circulated on the internet.The saucy pictures, which exploit her glamorous image, have been published amid a concerted ‘dirty tricks’ campaign against the former beauty queen, following her surprise appointment as 72-year-old Republican candidate John McCain’s running mate. One shows her apparently...

As news spread across the world of Iran’s provocative missile tests, so did an image of four missiles heading skyward in unison. Unfortunately, it appeared to contain one too many missiles, a point that had not emerged before the photo appeared on the front pages of The Los Angeles Times, The Financial Times, The Chicago Tribune and several other newspapers as well as on BBC News, MSNBC, Yahoo! News, NYTimes.com and many other major news Web sites.

At least one of the photographs released today by Iran and published by an unquestioning Western media has been Photoshopped:

Features - June 2, 2008 Digital Forensics: 5 Ways to Spot a Fake Photo By Hany Farid This story is a supplement to the feature "Digital Forensics: How Experts Uncover Doctored Images" which was printed in the June 2008 issue of Scientific American. Lighting Composite images made of pieces from different photographs can display subtle differences in the lighting conditions under which each person or object was originally photographed. Such discrepancies will often go unnoticed by the naked eye. For an image such as the one at the right, my group can estimate the direction of the light source for...

The story is about climate change, and when I saw the accompanying photo of a fish lying at the bottom of a dried lake, I immediately screamed fake. Take a look, there's no way the buzzards or other predators wouldn't have picked it clean in the time it took for the lake to evaporate.

Hizbullah won the Second Lebanon War by achieving a propaganda victory over Israel, a Harvard University study has concluded. Aided and abetted by a compliant and credulous press, Hizbullah achieved victory by convincing the world that Israel was the aggressor and that Israel's retaliatory offensive was a "disproportionate" response to the kidnapping and killing of its soldiers.

While the war between Israel and Hezbollah raged in Lebanon and Israel last summer, it became clear that media coverage had itself started to play an important role in determining the ultimate outcome of that war. It seemed clear that news coverage would affect the course of the conflict. And it quickly transpired that Hezbollah would become the beneficiary of the media's manipulation. A close examination of the media's role during the 2006 Israel-Hezbollah war in Lebanon comes now from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, in an analysis of the war published in a paper whose subtitle should give...

Paper Photog Quits Over Altered Picture Monday April 9, 2007 11:01 PM By JOHN SEEWER Associated Press Writer TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - A staff photographer for The Blade who digitally altered a front-page photo has resigned, the newspaper said Monday. Allan Detrich had told Blade editors that he altered a photo of a college baseball team for his personal files and mistakenly sent it to the newspaper. The photo showed Bluffton University players kneeling March 30 at their first game after a bus crash killed five players in Atlanta. Photos of the team in other Ohio newspapers showed the legs...

For a hearty lunchtime chuckle: Check out my interview with Ron Ott of Coptix, one of the masterminds behind the April Fools' joke that caused a Rove Derangement Syndrome feeding frenzy.

A fawning mainstream media Where Eagles dare, pacifists doctor and dupe By Judi McLeod Sunday, March 25, 2007 My friend Jackie Gordon, who exposes anti-war ANSWER for their lies on the Internet, wants to know about pictures posted on their website that appear to be doctored.As we all know by now, the ragtag, loose knit and lovable vets called The Gathering of Eagles changed history in Washington D.C. on March 17. Traveling in great numbers from far distances, they outnumbered ANSWER three to one--but a fawning mainstream media failed to report the facts, as usual taking the side of ANSWER....

Does this photo appear to be doctored to you?

The Los Angeles Times gives credence to Iran’s bogus claim that the US is behind two recent attacks in Iran: Iran alleges U.S. link to militant attack. TEHRAN — Bullet cartridges bearing a U.S. insignia and English lettering were among the weaponry seized last week from Sunni militants suspected of killing 11 members of Shiite-dominated Iran’s elite Revolutionary Guard, Iranian officials said Sunday. A photo of the cartridge box, along with an array of other ammunition, was published by Iranian newspapers and news agencies. Iran did not provide access to the weapons and explosives, drawing skepticism from analysts, and there...

I think it's photoshopped.

The Polar Bear Pic They Won't Show You h/t Instapundit - Ann Althouse calls attention to an image of Polar Bears making the rounds, again - it was allegedly taken by Dan Crosbie in 2004 and is currently number one on Yahoo's photo list. The image I have up at right also involves Dan Crosbie from the same period in 2004 during a scientific trip during which they carried rifles to run off polar bears while planting equipment in the ice - ice that was much thicker than they expected it to be. (pertinent excerpted text at bottom) But...

new information about the Reuters Photoshop scandal: Reuters fired a top photo editor for the Middle East during an internal investigation of two doctored photos from the Israel-Lebanon war that were published last summer. The editor was the second casualty of the photo manipulation controversy surrounding Reuters freelancer Adnan Hajj. Two of Hajj’s photographs showed obvious signs of digital alterations. Facing a storm of criticism last August, Reuters terminated its relationship with Hajj and pulled more than 900 of his photos from its archive. A Reuters spokesperson said Thursday that the company would not release the name of the editor...

LONDON (Reuters) - Reuters named a new chief photographer for the Middle East on Thursday and said it had tightened its editing procedures after the publication last year of two photographs that had been digitally altered. The measures were among several steps announced by David Schlesinger, editor-in-chief of the global news and information agency, following an internal investigation that he said had resulted in disciplinary action. 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...

How the Dems Support the Troops Remember that photo at the top of The Democratic Party’s page, of a crowd of people cheering and pumping their fists? The theme is that only the Democrats really support the troops, and this is the page where they previously featured a faked image of a Canadian soldier. Well, the irony doesn’t stop there, because that crowd photo doesn’t even show a real group of people genuinely supporting the US military. It’s another stock image. (Hat tip: Raymond.) Note the keywords. Several other bloggers have remarked that the crowd picture seemed oddly out...

A military guy e-mails a weekend website blooper: Thought you might be interested in posting this. The DNC website has a page called Veterans and Military Families where they purpo[r]t to care about the welfare of US troops. Unfortunately they couldn't even find a picture of a US soldier to post on the page. The picture in the Get Involved frame is not a US Army uniform. The soldiers in the background are not in a US uniform either. My military correspondent says the uniform in the DNC photo...is Canadian. Is he right?

Yesterday evening, I received a call from my column syndicate, Creators Syndicate. The Associated Press had phoned my editor to inform her that it would be sending a response to my column yesterday about detained AP photographer Bilal Hussein. (Funny how quickly they respond now. Where have they been the past five months? Oh, right: Busy covering up the news about Hussein's April 12 capture by the military at a Ramadi apartment with an alleged al Qaeda leader and a weapons cache.) The AP last night asked my editor to supply its corporate communications office with my newspaper client list...

On September 18, Iranian-born, Dallas businesswoman Anousheh Ansari (bio here) and two astronauts are scheduled to blast off in a Russian Soyuz TMA-9 spacecraft from the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Ansari replaced Japanese-born businessman Daisuke Enomoto, who was pulled from the flight for medical reasons. The Iranian news media has not made too much of the first Iranian woman scheduled to go into space, but there have been a number of reports about it and this Iranian space site has a number of pictures. So it is interesting to me that one of the photos has clearly been photoshopped...

Yesterday, Slate posted this piece criticizing Frank Rich's New York Times column about the 9/11 photo shown here. The picture was taken by Magnum photographer Thomas Hoepker on the afternoon of 9/11. Calling the image "shocking," Rich suggested that the five New Yorkers were "relaxing" and were already "mov[ing] on" from the attacks. Slate's David Plotz disputed that characterization of the picture, arguing that the subjects had almost certainly gathered to discuss the attacks and to find solace in others' company. Rather than showing callousness, as Rich suggested, it depicted civic engagement. But since neither Rich nor Plotz knew exactly...

A new film depicts President Bush being assassinated. Should it be shown? * 55345 responses Yes, it's a good display of free speech. 52% No, the filmmakers have gone too far. 43% Perhaps -- but not in the United States. 5.2%

IT'S bad enough that friends of Hezbollah terrorists could trick so many journalists with just a tall story and a rusty Lebanese ambulance. Worse is that some of those journalists seemed so eager to believe this ambulance was indeed wickedly blown up by an Israeli missile fired straight through the big red cross on its roof -- leaving not even a scorch mark. But worst is that even now that this hoax has been exposed, none of the countless writers and commentators who fell for it have admitted to passing on as fact the propaganda of terrorists. It is this...

CBS News Unveils New Couric Web Ad CampaignNew York, August 30, 2006(CBS) CBS News announced Wednesday a new internet-based advertising campaign to promote the premier of Katie Couric as the new anchorwoman of "The CBS Evening News". CBS News President Sean McManus made the following statement:"We here at CBS News - which, if you haven't heard, is the new home of Katie Couric - want to reach out to former audience members who, in a bout of confusion, seem to now prefer highly questionable internet based news sources rather than the traditional trusted evening news broadcast. We would also like...

The media war against Israel Early in the recent Lebanon war, the blogosphere revealed the fabrication of images by Reuters, whose reputation is now in shreds among those dwindling numbers in the western mainstream media who still acknowledge there is such a thing as the truth. Since then, the nature and scale of the various frauds perpetrated by the media during that war put those doctored Reuters pictures into the shade. The western media are no longer merely producing questionable professional practices in reporting a war. They are now active participants in it — and on the wrong side of...

Katie Couric slimmed down in the blink of a CBS eye. Tiffany Network officials admitted yesterday that an airbrushed photo making the bubbly broadcaster appear several dress sizes smaller appeared in its promotional magazine "Watch!" The incoming "CBS Evening News" anchor said she didn't know about the digitally doctored photo until the September issue of the quarterly glossy landed on her desk. "I liked the first picture better because there's more of me to love," the 49-year-old former NBC "Today" show host said, laughing off the manipulated publicity shot.

International journalists discuss Lebanon war coverage; NYT bureau chief: Israel 'not interested in Lebanese deaths' A number of journalists claimed during a convention in Jerusalem Monday evening that Israel and the IDF were mostly to blame for the way the foreign media covered the Lebanon war. The panel of journalists, largely from the international media, convened to discuss their coverage of the war, at a conference arranged by the Media Line agency's Mideast Press Club. "Journalists' access to the battlefield is controlled exclusively by the IDF," said Simon McGregor-Wood, Chairman of the Foreign Press Association, and Bureau Chief of ABC...

You would think that Reuters learned its lesson about publishing to the world photos doctored to create a false image. After all, they were caught with multiple false photos from Lebanon, and had to take down more than 900 images from one stringer. Reuters promised it would have "experienced editors" look at all such photos in the future.

Fauxtography Defender's Faux News Turns out that Greg Mitchell, the Editor & Publisher editor who has been attacking the blogosphere like a rabid ferret for pointing out the bogus news from the Middle East, has first-hand experience with staging news. (Hat tip: Confederate Yankee.) Since the press seems to be in full-disclosure mode these days, I want to finally come clean. Back when I worked for the Niagara Falls (N.Y.) Gazette (now the Niagara Gazette), our city editor asked me to find out what tourists thought about an amazing local event: Engineers had literally “turned off” the famous cataracts,...

<p>Great video of all the fake photos and green helmut man.</p>

All Your Fakes Are Belong to Us A jawa video spoof on Beirut Fauxtography.

Amid the controversy over certain pictures from Lebanon, a longtime student of war photography asks, "I'm not sure if the craft I love is being murdered, committing suicide, or both." By David D. Perlmutter (August 18, 2006) -- The Israeli-Hezbollah war has left many dead bodies, ruined towns, and wobbling politicians in its wake, but the media historian of the future may also count as one more victim the profession of photojournalism. In twenty years of researching and teaching about the art and trade and doing photo-documentary work, I have never witnessed or heard of such a wave of attacks...

It's the story that the journalistic elite would rather just go away. In the aftermath of Reuters' admission that one of its photographers, Adnan Hajj, had manipulated two war images from Lebanon after bloggers smoked out his crude Photoshop alterations, and all 920 of his Reuters photos were pulled, evidence of far more troubling photo staging and media deception in the Middle East continues to pour in. Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs (littlegreenfootballs.com) calls it "fauxtography." Reuters on Sunday withdrew an image of smoke rising from burning buildings after an Israeli air strike on the suburbs of Beirut on...

The first Photoshop war Lebanon war's doctored photos could be harbinger of photojournalism crisis Gal Mor The photo of an apparently new Mickey Mouse doll, resting on a ruined street in the Lebanese town of Tyre following an Israeli Air Force attack, took me back to a British TV show called "Drop the Dead Monkey," which aired in Israel about 15 years ago. One of the journalists in Channel 4's satirical show used to hang around battle zones with a teddy bear in his trunk and place it at disaster zones a short time before cameras began shooting, in order...

Many of the mainstream media apologists have conceded – and they had little choice but to do so – that many of the photographs of the Israelis’ response to Hez b’Allah’s act of war, were staged. The evidence of staging and Photoshopping is too public. The media allowed itself to be used to defame Israel, stir up sympathy for Lebanon and halt the advance into Lebanon. But the concessions of wrongdoing stop short with digital alterations. Media spokesmen are still in denial about the biggest media fraud of all: the dramatic dead baby display at Qana. EUreferendum has not given...

When Reuters was forced to sever ties with free-lance photographer Adnan Hajj and remove more than 900 of his photos from its database earlier this month, long-whispered questions about the reliability of Arab stringers and freelancers came to the forefront. But while the widespread use of Arab locals in covering the Middle East raises many legitimate concerns, the Palestinian propaganda machine has enjoyed tremendous success over the years hoodwinking supposedly sophisticated Western journalists. And Hezbollah appears to have done the same over the past month. In short, almost nothing that is purported to happen in the Arab world can automatically...

Thanks to some intrepid digging from commenters Lancelot and Harris at EU Referendum, another video of the events at Qana has been found. This is one that I have never seen before and really shows what was going on that day. It is truly a must see for anyone that believes that the photos at Qana were staged. It completely debunks the "our photographers do not set up photos" and "the rescuers were not holding up the children for photos" claims. Believe it or not, it is a link from Wikipedia of all places. Here's the direct link to the...