National Press Photographers Association

National Press Photographers Association

Reuters Concludes Lebanon Photos Investigation, Appoints Editor To Oversee Middle East

(January 18, 2007) – Today in London the editor in chief for Reuters reported in his blog a series of actions the news agency has taken in the aftermath of publishing two digitally altered photographs last August during the clash between Israel and Lebanon, including issuing a new code of conduct for the photographers and appointing a new senior editor to supervise photography operations in the Middle East.

Editor David Schlesinger announced that Stephen Crisp has been appointed to manage Middle Eastern photography operations, replacing an editor who was fired “in the course of the investigation for his handling of the case.” Crisp is a Reuters veteran who’s worked in the London bureau and run photography desks for Reuters in Asia, Europe, and globally since 1985.

Reuters refuses to name the editor who was fired, but more than one industry source has told News Photographer magazine that the editor was hired by a major news picture agency within days of his dismissal.

Schlesinger wrote that Reuters systematically terminated their relationship with the freelancer who altered the two images in question, Lebanese freelancer Adnan Haj, and assigned veteran picture editors and senior editorial staff to the task of going through thousands of images from the Lebanon conflict. He says they determined there were no other altered photographs outside of the two images in question. But their conclusion was that they were not satisfied with “the degree of oversight that we had that allowed these two images to slip through.”

In August two pictures were transmitted to Reuters News Pictures clients that were discovered to have been altered. One showed thick smoke rising from downtown Beirut after an Israeli bombing raid, and the smoke appears to have been awkwardly doctored using Photoshop’s cloning tool. It was discovered by several Web bloggers, and the controversy ignighted. In the course of investigating the picture, Reuters editors discovered a second Haj image that showed an Israeli F-16 during one of the raids which had been altered to increase from one to three the number of flares it was dropping, and in the caption the flares were identified as “missiles.”

Now in addition to appointing Crisp, Schlesinger said senior photographers were assembled and assigned to strengthen Reuters’ existing ethical guidelines. They were also asked to write a new code of conduct for the photography staff to follow.

“We have restructured our pictures editing operation to ensure that senior editors deal with all potential controversial photographs, and we have ensured that shift leaders are focusing solely on quality issues instead of doing editing themselves,” he said. Schlesinger also said that Reuters has brought in outside experts to consult them on the issues surrounding digital workflow, training, and supervision.

Schlesinger said that as a result of their investigation he’s convinced that there was no intention on the part of Reuters to mislead the public, and that “it was unfortunate human error that led to the inadvertent publication of two rogue photographs.”

The editors blog contains links to the new rules and guidelines regarding their photographers’ use of Photoshop, and a link to their code of values and standards.

Schlesinger has been Reuters editor in chief since December 2006, and he overseas 2,300 editorial staff in print, pictures, and television operations.