The camera never lies, they say — but what if the photos are sent out by the Reuters news agency?
And especially what if they make Israel look bad?
Which is precisely what happened after IHH, the Turkish “humanitarian” group with longstanding terrorist ties, released photos of the bloody clash between its activists and Israeli commandos who boarded a ship trying to break the Gaza blockade.
One photo shows an Israeli surrounded by IHH “peace” activists, one of whom is holding a knife.
The second shows another Israeli lying under a bloodstained railing as a second IHH activist also holds a knife.
At least that’s what appears in the images distributed by The Associated Press.
In the photos distributed by Reuters, there were no knives. And no blood.
The impact being to make it look more like an Israeli massacre of innocent civilians and less like an act of self-defense against armed thugs masquerading as humanitarian workers.
All this might have gone undetected — had blogger Charles Johnson of Little Green Footballs not blown the whistle.
The folks at Reuters insist it’s all an innocent, harmless mistake.
The IHH photos were subjected to “normal editorial practice” that included “cropping around the edges,” a spokesman said. “When we realized that the dagger was inadvertently cropped from the images, Reuters immediately moved the original set, as well.”
Except that this isn’t the first time Reuters has been caught in some blatantly anti-Israel photo retouching.
Back in 2006, during the Israel-Lebanon war, at least two images sent by Reuters over its wire from Beirut were deliberately doctored so as to suggest great damage inflicted by Israel.
Indeed, it was the very same blogger, Charles Johnson, who uncovered the outrageous exercise in what he called “fauxtography.”
At first, the agency also claimed an innocent mistake, saying the photographer had been trying to remove “dust marks.”
But eventually, Reuters was forced to ‘fess up.
It admitted the photos had been deliberately faked, severed its ties to the photographer, Lebanese freelancer Adnan Hajj, and removed all 920 pictures he’d taken from its server. A senior photo editor also was fired.
Reuters insists that it’s “committed to accurate and impartial reporting.”
You be the judge.
–THE EDITORS