Archive for the 'fake' Category

College paper: ‘Students like sex’

Published
by
Robb Montgomery
on October 15, 2006
in Media Landscape, design, editors, fake and journalism
. 1 Comment

Students like sexStudents Like Sex (especially in the graduate library)

Now that’s a great headline - but is it true?

Images of spoof newspapers like this sometimes just pop up on the Web and you have to wonder if they are real. This image just surfaced recently on Flickr and after a little reporting we learned that it was published and distributed earlier in the year - technicolor flag and all. The seniors in charge of editing The Michigan Daily perhaps get to publish stories like this as a kind of a one-off joke on straight journalism.

A former staffer says:

It was 4-8 pages. Same number as we do on normal circulation I believe. And it was distributed as if it were any other day’s paper.

My sources tell me they do it every year with the graduating seniors. Anyone care to enlighten us about this or “The Every Three Weekly” which is allegedly the most notorious publication on campus?

We were able to find the story online and it was written by someone with the title “Ultimate News Editor.” With a January 2006 dateline.
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The caption for the Page one art reads “Two students. Doing it. (PEEPING THOM/Daily)”

FCC questions ‘Fake News’ shows at 77 TV Stations

Published
by
Robb Montgomery
on August 15, 2006
in Media Landscape, fake and journalism
. 0 Comments

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The Federal Communications Commission has issued 42 formal letters of inquiry to holders of 77 broadcast licenses, the office of Commissioner Jonathan Adelstein said Monday.

“Shoddy practices make it difficult for viewers to tell the difference between news and propaganda.”

Broadcasters include Sinclair Broadcast Group, News Corp.’s Fox Television Stations, Clear Channel Communications, Tribune Co. and Viacom/CBS.

More in today’s MediaWeek article.

As seen on CNN - the Visual Editors blog

Published
by
Robb Montgomery
on August 12, 2006
in fake, internet, journalism and video
. 2 Comments

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[gv data="http://www.visualeditors.com/home/art/cnn_vizeds.flv"][/gv]

While we were away on holiday, CNN’s star power caught up with the Reuters photo story and splashed a few blogs that were covering the developments last weekend - included was our humble blog. Looks like it was the shameful ‘fake’ category that caught their eye.

Oh, and Reuters finally did get around to posting one entry in their newsblog. In adressing the ‘fake war photos from Lebanon incident’ it merely links away to the offical company memos and then strolls down memory lane recalling the chemical-based darkroom techniques news shooters stopped using 13 years ago.

Which reminds me, if anyone is interested in a Leitz 35mm enlarger (with the color head!) a saunders four-blade easel, timers, developing trays, ss tongs, ss reels and a day-lite darkroom light that could light up a darkrom the size of an indoor gym- make me an offer - I haven’t used this kit since 1999.

Reuters spikes 920 images by photog after 2nd fake war photo found

Published
by
Robb Montgomery
on August 7, 2006
in fake and journalism
. 0 Comments

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Reuters is dropping all photos ever filed by Adnan Hajj.

UPDATE:
It is now late afternoon Monday and Reuters has . .

Reuters still doesn’t get it. This is a ‘bloggers’ story. The first place to respond is by using a ‘rapid-response’ news tool a.k.a. ‘blogs.’

The original posting from this morning continues below:
Continue reading ‘Reuters spikes 920 images by photog after 2nd fake war photo found’

Where there is smoke - fake war photo killed by Reuters

Published
by
Robb Montgomery
on August 6, 2006
in ethics, fake and journalism
. 0 Comments

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Reuters apologizes and drops photographer.

Adnan Hajj’s smoking city photo has been yanked by Reuters and the photographer suspended. There is an old saying the news game - “bad news comes in threes.” This is our third blog entry since July 26 on this maddening trend for manipulating news photos. Make that ‘getting caught’ for faking news photos.

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This bombing photo was obviously faked. Several bloggers donned their ‘CSI detective’ toques and detailed the pShop abuses in pixelating detail.

Reuters has more explaining to do.
Reuters explanation and reporting of this infraction, is seems, needs more explaining. I could find no mention of this event on the Reuters.com home page or their photo blog. This quote from the Reuters PR person is claimed by Dot Journalism - We searched for an hour and while other bloggers are stealing the quote without giving credit - it is good to bear in mind that only dot journalism claims to have talked with Reuters.

“Reuters has suspended a photographer until investigations are completed into changes made to a photograph showing smoke billowing from buildings following an air strike on Beirut,” Reuters’ PR head Moira Whittle told Journalism.co.uk on Sunday.


A yahoo search of the photographer’s work on Yahoo reveals that has also filed for the A&P in the past.

The cloning is so obvious and needless it undefendable. We will all now be watching for how Reuters handles the case. It is now with great regret that we must add a new category for this journalism blog - ‘fake.‘
Sources: Visual Editors members , The Shape Of Days , Little Green Footballs , Journalism.co.uk , Hot air , sportsshooter.com , Reuters , Yahoo,

Learn how to fake photos AND break into photojournalism

Published
by
Robb Montgomery
on August 3, 2006
in ethics, fake, journalism and training
. 1 Comment

woman_closeup01.jpgThe pitch for an upcoming MediaBistro training course reads “Do you look at a photo and wish you could change something about it?” Visual Editors had no idea that modern media students look at photos of their friends and think “if only I could make them LOOK thinner . . . ”
Below are more actual ‘unretouched’ course descriptions:

Digital Retouching: Manipulating Reality with Photoshop (Learn how to make your friends thinner in pictures!) Full course description

Over four days, you will learn how to change lighting and color in your photos, sharpen and soften skin tones and texture, change eye and hair color, digitally add make up, remove marks, add or remove tattoos, remove objects or even people from photos or make them change places or even whole locations.

If that sounds a bit ‘techy’ you may want to take this one instead:

photographer02.jpgBreaking into Editorial Photography (Learn how to shoot for a killing) Full course description

Editorial photography is not only a respectable living in it’s own right, but it’s also a stepping stone to the advertising world.

Hmm - maybe what you really want a high-paying desk job in NYC instead.

photographer01.gifHow to Become a Great Photo Editor Full course description

The most successful photo editors combine creativity, organization, business savvy, and people skills to get the photo that makes the reader stop, buy the magazine, and read the article. This course will teach you everything you need to know to be one of the top photo editors in the industry.

Hey, this one only costs $65.

Doctored photo costs photog a newsroom job

Published
by
Robb Montgomery
on July 28, 2006
in editors, ethics, fake, newspaper and training
. 3 Comments

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No, Not in Miami where you don’t lose your job for faking news photos for political purposes.
The Charlotte Observer has sacked a staff photographer for altering a spot news image that was published yesterday. The paper told readers in today’s edition.

Photographer Patrick Schneider photo depicted a Charlotte firefighter on a ladder, silhouetted by the light of the early morning sun.

In the original photo, the sky in the photo was brownish-gray. Enhanced with photo-editing software, the sky became a deep red and the sun took on a more distinct halo.

The Observer’s photo policy states: “No colors will be altered from the original scene photographed.”

Schneider said he did not intend to mislead readers, only to restore the actual color of the sky. He said the color was lost when he underexposed the photo to offset the glare of the sun.

The paper’s photo policy is reprinted on Poynter.

Schneider was suspended from The Observer in an eariler episode where news images of firefighters he had made won a journalism contest. After the manipulations were revealed, the photo awards were rescinded. Scheider allowed his case to be used as a case study to educate other profressional photographers in ethics seminars. He also at the time pledged, “I will no longer tone my background down that far.”

Miami newspaper fakes photo of cops with hookers.

Published
by
Robb Montgomery
on July 26, 2006
in editors, ethics, fake, journalism, newspaper and tabloid
. 0 Comments

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THURSDAY P.M. UPDATE: el Nuevo Herald admits today it made two errors in news judgement in running what they, ex post facto, are labeling a ‘photo montage.’
The paper’s explanation.

And here is that page parsed by a bot into a semi-semblence of English . . .

The clarification comes one month after the original image was published as a straight news photo and rather swiftly after the fabrication was questioned by the Miami New Times paper.

—Original post and first update are listed below —-
Alt-weekly Miami New Times claims photo fraud in a 27 July article linked online this week by D.I.G., Romenesko and now, well, us. UPDATE: Newsdesigner has now filed as well. Sigh.

Maybe we are all just just FARK-bait for the Cafe Cubano Sippin’ Yucca scene but let’s risk it, shall we?
Here’s the picture New Times has up with their story of photo fakery at el Nuevo Herald.

The paper claims that the page 27 photo that ran in the A section of Sunday’s 25 June edition of el Nuevo Herald is a combination of two photos. Combined, again New Times claims, to make a political statement.

This is how the New Times sleuths see things after studying the nitty-gritty details of the working girls image.

1) The doorway, ‘there is a sharp variation in light between the right and left sides.’
2) The shadows, Cops are casting shadows and the streetwalkers are not.

Hmm. Those shadows probably do have some explaining to do . . .

Here’s their lead:

A striking, five-column color photo was splashed across the Sunday, June 25 edition of el Nuevo Herald. It showed four spandex-clad prostitutes in Cuba hailing a foreign tourist. Just a few feet away, two policemen conversed with a little girl and a woman. The headline: “Hookers: The Sad Meat of the American Dollar.”

The cops obviously didn’t care about the working girls — a clear sign of the hypocritically wanton ways of Fidel Castro’s Cuba.

Problem is, the picture was a fake. - Miami New Times

The photo ran five columns wide in color and New Times runs a 300 pixel-wide BLACK AND WHITE image on their Web site.

NOTE: If we had a larger scan of the published photo we could ‘Zoomify’ it right here in this blog let everyone have a look at 100 percent. Send us a note if you have a copy of the el Nuevo Herald page, a scanner and an e-mail address. Better yet - e-mail us a PDF of the page in query.

HOW COULD THEY? IS THE MCCLATCHY PAPER DENYING IT?

Well not ‘zactly. You see the alt-paper ran with the story without a quote from the El Nuevo brass - the decision-makers are not returning calls to New Times. To be certain, this saga is not over. Stay tuned for ‘Fake Cuban Hooker Photos: Part Deuce ‘- which we predict will entertain a denial, an apology, a rebuke, a head rolling, a lawsuit or if we are truly blessed - all five.

Sigh.
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P.S. As you follow this item it may be helpful to keep in mind that New Times is the same paper that satisfied all curiosity about the invention of the female jock strap with this memorable Page One.