Lightroom Magazine

Reuters move on image manipulation

by Jon Mitchell

One of the biggest media stories to come out of the August 2006 conflict between Hezbollah and the Israelis was the Reuters photo-journalist who was sacked for manipulating some of his images of the Israeli bombardment of Beirut.

Reuters first put the images on their services and then later withdrew the image. TV reports showed that the photographer in question had over-emphsized the smoke on the skyline with very liberal use of the clong stamp on about 300 pixels in diameter.

Personally, I thought the photographer was a bit daft to have enhanced his image in this way and while I understand that Reuters need to send a clear message to their shooters, this was a bit harsh, as the photographer was fired, when a reprimand would have done.

At the Reuters said they would make public their findings and so now have done just that, with Editor-in-Chief, David Schlesinger posting a full response on the Reuters photo blog.

"Experienced photo editors and other senior editorial staff went through thousands of images published during the Lebanon conflict. We are satisfied no other images were digitally altered," he said.

Now the news photo agency has changed it's staff in the Middle East, with Stephen Crisp now supervising photo operations in the region. Mr Crisp is British and formerly ran Reuters' European photo desks and some in Asia since joining the agency in 1985 (oh, those jobs for life still exist!).

"We were not satisfied with the degree of oversight that we had that allowed these two images to slip through. We have [now] tightened procedures, taken appropriate disciplinary action and appointed one of our most experienced editors to supervise photo operations in the Middle East," Schlesinger said.

His predecessor has been dismissed for his "handling" of the issue, according to Reuters, in the course of their internal investigation.

"We are fully satisfied, as we conclude our extensive investigation, that it was unfortunate human error that led to the inadvertent publication of two rogue photographs. There was absolutely no intention on Reuters part to mislead the public," Schlesinger added.

Reuters have also put in place new editing methods and workflow management to eliminate such a thing happening again and gathered senior photographers to establish a new code of conduct. They also say that they have restructured their picture editing to ensure senior editors deal with potentially controversial photos and invested in more training and supervision.

Interestingly, they also say that they have contacted some software people to try and see if they can do anything, though I think it is better done by the human eye, as it could be abused and would itself be controversial at best.

"Our swift, strong response, however, both in the days immediately following and in the months since, has strengthened our commitment to our trust principles and our reputation as a respected global news provider which acts with integrity and transparency. We have shown that when mistakes are made we take responsibility and make changes," Schlesinger said.

So that is the end of that then! However, there is a lesson for us all here, which is: Do not ham up your pics too much with image editing software and putting more smoke in a image where there is only a bit, is unethical and misleading. While darkening a sky is OK. Most people should be able to work out their limits on this, though if you have difficulty or are not sure, read the new Reuters code of conduct.

"Our enhanced guidelines and procedures are among the best in the industry. And I believe we are firm in our dedication to reporting the world truthfully, objectively and without bias, as we have done for more than 150 years," he added.