Oh, waily, waily, waily goes the blogosphere — the Washington Post, it was said, Photoshopped an image of Tiger Woods and Phil Mickelson.
Let the hand-wringing begin. “[S]o if they’re willing to change the photo in a story, is there any reason to think that they wouldn’t change a story’s facts or exaggerate things?! Mainstream media is turning into a complete farce” wrote one commenter.
Problem 1: The photo wasn’t in the Washington Post; it was in the paper’s free weekly pub, Express. But saying “Doctored photo in the Washington Post!” sounds better.
Problem 2: The photo was real. It wasn’t Photoshopped.
Chris Combs, photo editor at the Washington Post Express, weighed in on BoingBoing:
This is a Getty photo and I ran it verbatim. I don’t have time for Photoshop.
The one error to which our sports editor will likely admit is that it is credited to “Stuart Franklin/AP,” whereas it is “Stuart Franklin/Getty Images” that took the photo. Here is the picture on Getty’s site.
And thus, once again, we see the difference between bloggers and journalists. Bloggers don’t have to check facts, they can rely on the truthiness of something — their gut feeling — to make a claim of fraud. But a journalist couldn’t get away with just saying something is true because, gosh darn it, it feels true. He would have to, you know, check facts.
One of the more famous examples of this was when right-wing extremist Michelle Malkin claimed that the Associated Press had fabricated a source, citing her “contacts.” In fact, the source was real, the AP produced him, and Malkin issued a half-hearted apology.
Journalists check facts. And when they don’t, the whole world knows — right, Dan Rather?
So while bloggers can talk about the imminent demise of the mainstream media, they really don’t have anything better to replace it.
The Fray
Rhonda R Shearer says:
Hey wait a minute. I went to BoingBoing . The editor of Express was less annoyed than you and more open minded about the fact the photo could be altered. Here is his comment in toto:
#19 posted by chriscombs , June 12, 2008 7:52 PM
(This is a copy of a comment I made on the Photoshop Disasters entry.)
“Hi there!
“This is Chris Combs, photo editor at the Washington Post Express.
“This is a Getty photo and I ran it verbatim. I don’t have time for Photoshop.
“The one error to which our sports editor will likely admit is that it is credited to “Stuart Franklin/AP,” whereas it is ‘Stuart Franklin/Getty Images’ that took the photo. Here is the picture on Getty’s site.
“You may also find it on editorial.gettyimages.com by searching for :
‘Stuart Franklin’ tiger mickelson
“I can’t say that Stuart Franklin didn’t ‘chop the image, but Express didn’t touch it.
“Big fan of this site, believe it or not.
“Cheers, Chris Combs”
Steven Rumbalski says:
The photo does look edited to me. From the picture it looks like:
(1) Mickelson’s shoulder is in front of Woods.
(2) Woods’ club head is behind Woods, but in front of Mickelson.
(1) conflicts with (2), therefore the photo has been edited.
But who cares? I don’t care if images are edited as long as the result is still a “true” representation. (I know it’s a fuzzy standard.) If I had to guess, I’d say that Woods and Mickelson were standing further apart when the photo was taken. Then again since they are looking in two different directions it’s probably a mashup of two images.
I wonder where this idea that an untouched photo image somehow equals a true life view. The photographer composes the shot and picks which moment to freeze in time. These choices can result in images that do not give a true view of what is pictured.
Rhonda R Shearer says:
If a photographer pasted a couple of photos together, who cares? I agree. But news and sports photographers are suppose to recording what happens in real time–not staging or faking a moment in time that never occurred.
Fake, staged news– whether an image, facts or stories — is the opposite of truthful reporting. It is a poison that breeds mistrust.
gnomic says:
Yeah, it was ‘shopped. The light sources on the two subjects have different orientations – very easy to see from the directions of the shadows in the folds of thier clothes.
Hmm. How do you feel about being lied to?
Its entirely possible that someone else altered the photo (Getty?), but its definatly altered. There is some software out on the web that will detect these typs of things, but I don’t remember where to find it.
Andrew says:
Sorry, Gnomic, but I can’t believe that Getty went through the trouble of Photoshopping all the photos in that series — that’s a lot of useless work. If it was just one shot I would believe it, but not all of them.
PKMousie says:
Isn’t that the whole point of this post? That people on blogs make claims without doing any investigation? The original photos are out there and readily demonstrate the lack of any gross manipulation. They’re not Photoshopped. This one only *looks* Photoshopped.
Rhonda R Shearer says:
PKMousie, your conclusion is that you looked at the other photos in the series and they “readily demonstrate the lack of any gross manipulation.”
How so? Please see my comment on Boing Boing –below. Getty itself is still investigating as of a few hours ago when I spoke with them. So I don’t think it is as self evident as you claim.
#56 posted by RhondaRShearer , June 13, 2008 1:51 PM
“I called Getty as part of our http://www.stinkyjournalism.org investigation. ‘Molly’ was very professional and called me back. She said they (Getty Director of Photography [DOP] ) and another branch agency, Contour, are ‘investigating’ the photograph. Washington Post, the mother ship for Express is also asking questions.
“We are running tests now and will soon report our results.
“The Express editor, who published the photo has been extraordinary open and is investigating. For MsM, it is usual and noteworthy (and praiseworthy) how they are participating here in comments in such a friendly manner. There is also an exchange of ideas about this matter on http://www.kantor.com/blog/2008/06/like-i-said-bloggers-arent-always-journalists/
“By the way, the Getty photographer, Stuart Franklin is NOT the famous Stuart Franklin who shot the now iconic Tienanmen Square photo in China. I know because I emailed him. He wrote back and said that it wasn’t him.”
luther says:
I posted this over at Photoshop Disasters, but I think it also applies here:
“Many of these commenters are not interested in discovering the truth; they only want to push their agenda. If they had bothered to click on any one of the many links posted in this thread [@ PhotoshopDisasters], it would be clear that this picture is part of a series, proving beyond a doubt that it is NOT photoshopped.
Props to commenter eric, who resisted jumping on the bandwagon before the rest of pictures in the series were revealed.
Illicit photo-manipulators must have gotten so good that this blog [PhotoshopDisasters] can’t find any examples that show it more clearly.”
A newspaper toner says:
In the original Getty image Phil is clearly slightly out of focus, which makes sense depth-of-field wise since he is standing behind Tiger. But Phil is totally sharp in the Express photo which leads me to believe that the excessive sharpening is what is causing the confusion or optial illusion. I do not believe this photo was “‘shopped” by the photog, but the photo WAS definitely oversharpened by whatever human/software the Express uses to process their photos for publication.
Andrew says:
It’s also possible that the photog reduced his aperture between shots, so Phil came into focus for that last one, but I can see how a poor sharpening job wouldn’t help!
But keeping back on subject here, my point was that a writer for, say, the Times or the Post or a network news show couldn’t get away with saying, “X is true,” especially if “X” referred to something unsavory, without at least some fact checking.
Sure, there are plenty of cases where reporters screwed up and screwed editors, but by a huge margin stories written for major MSM outlets have some basic fact-checking done.
The same is not true for too many bloggers. They don’t check facts. It’s often a classic example of Colbert’s “truthiness” — they feel something is true in their gut (“Gosh, that looks Photoshopped, so it must be”) and pass that off as fact.
Which is why you can’t rely on blogs for accuracy, although they remain a great place to find breaking stories. But once it breaks, if you want accuracy you either have to stick with the MSM (knowing that any inaccuracies will be pounced on) or stick with bloggers you trust.
Of course, people tend to trust the blogs they like, so they aren’t always as skeptical as they should be….
Rhonda R Shearer says:
Andrew, I hate to break it to you but very few MsM outlets fact check their writers to any serious degree. A few magazines –The New Yorker and Atlantic Monthly —have fact check dept. Read what Michael Kinsley at Slate written awhile back in response to the Glass scandal: Quote below from article found at http://www.slate.com/id/110463/
Michael Kinsley wrote:
“A word about fact checking. Several hindsight artists have been quoted in the press saying that the New Republic’s fact checkers should have caught Glass. At least two of Slate’s editors are on record, though, deriding the institution of the “fact checking department.” And Slate does not have a fact checking department or “fact checkers” so labeled. We do have a group of people whose duties include making sure our writers are as accurate as possible. They are called ‘writers.’ And we have another group of people who skeptically examine what our writers produce and try to catch errors of fact (or of logic or analysis or spelling or taste or—in the case of poetry—rhyme and meter). These people are called ‘editors.’ What we do not have is people whose job it is to duplicate the writers’ research from scratch.”
gnomic says:
You gonna believe some blog or your own lying eyes?
I don’t know where this “series of photos” is, but that’s one hell of a depth of field to have the dominate light source coming from different directions.
Andrew says:
@Rhonda — Just because there isn’t an official fact-checking department doesn’t mean (by a long shot) that at least some level of due diligence is done.
I worked for a newspaper. If I came to my editor and said, “Check out this picture. It’s obviously Photoshopped. Let’s run a quickie piece about it,” the first thing he or any professional editor would say is, “Have you contacted the Post?”
A professional journalist could never get away with making an accusation without showing his editor that he checked it out. He could never write a piece like, “It’s obvious to this reporter that….” and not even bother to do basic fact checking.
You don’t need a department for that, although most newspapers’ copy editors serve that function in a broad sense. It’s Journalism 101.
Rhonda R Shearer says:
Andrew, it is very difficult and inaccurate to generalize–”journalists fact check” –”bloggers do not.” For example, I publish on the Internet. I investigate — in other words, fact check–media reports everyday and on occasion write for media outlets.
So therefore, I am offended and can not accept as fact that “bloggers don’t fact check but journalists do.” Furthermore, I see direct evidence daily that journalists DON’T fact check.
It is truly unbelievable how much information, that is truly suspect, is given a pass by editors.
A clear problem is when a journalist is a star –I have several cases (soon to be published on http://www.stinkyjournalism.org )where these sacred cows are not fact checked even by their elite fact checking depts.
In fact, as I write, there is a researcher packing into the rural Highlands of Papau New Guinea for me to fact check a recent New Yorker story. Stay Tuned. So please, blanket statements in this case are not true.
Terrh says:
Gnomic- Go to the Boingboing.net site. There links to the Getty site.
Truth is often stranger than fiction.
Steve says:
Wow, guys — you are completely missing the point of Photoshop Disasters.
Sure, the commentary can indict conspiracy, but the point of the site is to exhibit really terrible Photoshop jobs. And unless this is some kind of optical illusion – which is spectacularly unlikely – this is a pretty terrible Photoshop job.
That’s it. Bad PS job. That’s all. They make a snarky comment about how major newspapers aren’t supposed to screw up that bad, but none of the wailing comes from the site.
Calm the hell down.
Chris Combs says:
Hi there, We do indeed sharpen images for print. Newsprint is a lot more demanding of sharpness than an Internet PDF is. Thanks, Chris Combs
Rhonda R Shearer says:
I agree with you that Bloggers should contact the editors or photographers that they will soon accuse of wrongdoing and give them an opportunity to respond BEFORE they publish.
However, I don’t agree that ” Journalists check facts. And when they don’t, the whole world knows — right, Dan Rather?”
We at Stinkyjournalism .org have 40 cases in the pipeline, in addition to our published reportage (see http://www.stinkyjournalism.org ) where evidence proves that many journalists not only don’t check their facts or photos for veracity, but when they are caught, they won’t behave properly and none of their fellow MsM want to report about it.
Some of us on the Internet do serious investigations into media wrongdoing. It’s the dirty work that MsM will not do themselves with the rare exception–like Dan Rather. However even in this case, the “investigation” pulled punches . Even though evidence of fraud was overwhelming, the committee of insiders paid by media outlet left it inconclusive as to whether the document was fraudulent.
What is your evidence for declaring the photo is real? Because the Express photo editor said so? Or
because the photo is found on the Getty site? Surly this is not independent evidence or expert analysis? I would not say the photo is real based upon the facts that you present here. I think further research is required.